MY DESERT GARDEN
by Jillian W
Summary: STORY 3: 100 years after the Gunsmoke migration, the remaining inhabitants attempt to get along.
1. 1 Feathers

WARNING – this is a sequel!

My stories are in the following order:

1. YOU WANT TO SAVE THEM ALL

2. DISAPPOINTING MARTYRS

3. MY DESERT GARDEN

If you need a recap, it's 100 years later, and Vash and his daughter, Tessla, live on Earth. Knives is 'stuck' on Gunsmoke with the plants after all humans migrated away, and Vanessa has just chosen to join him. This third installment focuses primarily on the events of Gunsmoke.

And I must point out that if I don't think anyone's reading it (coughreviewscough) I won't bother uploading more of the story. It'll be my little secret…

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Furry-edged feathers floated inside the bulb and swirled about in slow motion, settling into a soft, little pile at the curved bottom of the bulb. The eerie nest lay below the tightly-curled plant angel that hid her form from sight.

Was that a baby's arm she saw, rising from within the feather nest? Twins maybe? No, it was just one, a baby that sat up from the down to stare her in the eyes with dilated pupils. It tipped its little head back to wail with its sharp teeth shining. Hunchbacked babies yell silently, she reminded herself.

"If you aren't going to pay attention, should I bother continuing?"

She leapt back into reality, turning to face her fellow sentient plant. "Sorry," she offered simply, tucking loose hair behind her pointed ears before shoving both hands into her pants pockets. "Saw a ghost."

Knives frowned, lifting his gaze from the control panels up into the bulb. "Do you remember it?" he asked reverently.

"Parts of it," Vanessa replied honestly. She glanced up at her reflection in the glassy surface of the bulb. Her blind, white left eye, her deeply scarred left cheek, the scars winding down her neck toward the myriad of scars upon the remainder of her skin…Sighing, her gaze floated down upon a feather. "The bulb seemed a lot bigger back when I was small."

"It probably was. Larger bulbs were exhausted earliest; all that remain are considerably smaller. Back to the task, hm?" Hesitating, he turned to view her profile as she began to lose herself in the glow of the bulb once more. "We have time, we'll discuss negative production plant manipulation later."

"I didn't know they molted," she murmured, leaning forward on tip-toes against the catwalk's safety railing.

Knives clicked keystrokes and the bulb's light dimmed some. "They don't."

"Tell HER that."

He didn't respond. His face looked serious and he didn't meet her eyes as he stood, still, before the panels. He coughed.

Something was wrong, she could tell. He was easy to read. But then, a century alone on a planet would do that to a person.

Steadying himself on the rail behind him, Knives cleared his throat. "Callisto seems to be ill."

Vanessa stood back as well, and she thought she saw the bulb flicker. This angel, whom Knives had named 'Callisto,' was wound around her core in a manner that looked different than all of the other angels, she noticed.

"She used to be sentient," he admitted. "While you were away. She figured out how to join them, and she did it. And she was stable, until now. This…isn't stable. I…I don't know what this is," he added, though it was obviously painful for him to say.

Sentient, Callisto? There was another? A walking angel, how did that happen? "So you weren't really alone for the whole time?" she supposed aloud.

He grunted and stood to walk down the catwalk.

Ouch. Probably shouldn't have asked that, she thought. It seemed to pain him to recall Callisto. Was Callisto a woman who broke his heart, or did he make some huge mistake with her, to cause her to join the angels? Vanessa felt her stomach churn a little. Lifting her gaze to the huddled mass at the core, several odious possibilities raced through her mind.

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"We've a half day to go," Knives stated, shifting in his seat on the toma cart. He stretched and fastened the reins to the front handle, settling in to the journey. His toma knew their way back home; he trusted them not to stray or dawdle.

"Are you awake?" he whispered, squinting in the moonlight of five moons to see her bundled form on the cushioned bench beside him. Long, blonde hair lifted in the breeze and slipped past her cheek. He smiled.

She yawned and shifted. "Yep," she responded. "Getting tired? We can camp."

"Rather not. I'll be back on the usual schedule if we can reach the garden by morning."

Sitting up, Vanessa cracked her back. She missed her bed on Earth, but would never again sleep in it. "Alright. Do you need me to help you stay awake then?" she asked, yawning again.

Knives pulled his cloaks tighter about him. He looked at her expectantly.

"I'm thinking of an Earth animal," she announced, starting a guessing game.

"Is it aquatic?"

"Yes."

"Four-valved heart?"

"No."

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Hours later, the guessing game was through, and both struggled to stay awake through this cold, Gunsmoke night. Knives picked at his fingernails in the moonlight. Vanessa was softly humming some very old song. His mind raced, wondering what to speak about.

"It's nearly cat season," he began. "I was wondering if you'd like to watch your first cat birth?"

She stopped humming. Had he said something wrong?

"Tessla…She looks just like you," Vanessa murmured, face tucked behind a fold of blanket.

Knives breathed out slowly. His scalp began to itch. "Callisto…"

Waiting for him to continue, Vanessa glanced at him from the corner of her good eye. "When was she born?"

"About the same time as Tessla, I imagine."

Vanessa turned away slightly. "What was she to you?"

"I'm not sure. She called me her father; I told her I didn't like that." He sounded bitter. "She was only a few years old when she left me for the bulb. Callisto…Looked just like you."

Knives waited for a response, but none came. Again, he wondered if he'd said something wrong. She'd returned to Gunsmoke barely a week prior; he wasn't accustomed to keeping company yet.

Unbeknownst to him, Vanessa felt nauseous.


	2. 2 Weeds

She didn't say much. Upon her arrival, he'd almost expected endless amounts of conversation from her – to make up for those endless years he spent with nothing to speak to but the cats. Granted, he was grateful for her presence at all, but more conversation would be nice.

For the several days, she was distant, but rarely left his side. He had learned plenty about Earth animals, thanks to these little games they often played, but he knew very little about her, about the other plants on Earth…She told him very little about the topics of which he cared most. They'd parted 100 Earth years ago on what he considered to be bad terms. If she hated him as much as then, maybe her return was self-punishment? Was she regretting it now? What about Vash? And Tessla, Vanessa's offspring with Vash, what of her fate?

But he could not bring himself to press such matters. It had only been a week. Certainly, he felt an urgent need to know everything, to know her, to touch her…No, not yet. Not yet.

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Several hours before first sunset, a very sweaty Vanessa awoke in the shack. She didn't remember getting back to the garden, or getting into bed – she must've been asleep. Knives must've carried her. They probably arrived around dawn and seemed to have slept through most of the day.

He hadn't stirred yet. She felt him pressed against her back, knees tucked behind her own, one hand upon her waist. The thick layers of blanketing they needed at night were wadded up at the foot of the bed; it was quite hot and arid in the shack. She wore thin, loose drawstring pants and a tank top when sleeping in the day, and Knives was likely dressed similarly.

Vanessa lifted herself, slowly, out of bed and went to shower. Her back was sticky, where he'd slept against her. Huddling together for warmth at night made sense, but when the sun was up she avoided his touch. She assumed he held her so close at night due to insecurity, to prove to himself that she was there, and no illusion. It was hard to criticize it. Since he was still respecting her unspoken limits, she never asked him to stop pressing himself close while he slept. The topic had never come up.

As she gathered clean clothing and a towel cloth, she saw him stir. He barely opened his eyes, then rolled over to stare at the wall. "There's still light, weeding to be done in the outer chambers before sunsets," he mumbled, voice scratchy and dry. She always showered after sleeping, and he always stayed in bed until after she left the room.

Upon cracking the shack's door to the garden, a rush of heady air met her. Insects buzzed about and the occasional feline darted here and there. She stepped out, into the shade of occasional trees, past vines and ferns, to the favored showering spot. Here, in a grotto surrounded by dense pine trees, she undressed and pulled the water chain, to let the grotto rain about her.

Sand and dirt fell from her tangled hair as she attempted to comb with a pinecone. Her hair was long and not easy to care for under the circumstances. There were no soaps or brushes here. She wanted to chop it all off, but somehow doing so wouldn't be fair to Knives, she felt.

The water slowed to a trickle and she toweled herself dry. Not for a moment did she leave the privacy of the grotto, not until she was fully clothed in her thick workpants. At all times, she wore a bra from Earth that kept her breasts tight to her chest, almost flat, and over that she wore Knives' shirts – large and billowy on her far narrower shoulders. It was better that way.

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Knives was already in the outermost chamber, weeding, working his way in. He'd only changed his sleep pants for heavily-patched jeans, the same pair as always.

The more delicate plants were in the outermost chambers, the heartiest in the closest. He likely began building this garden using the plants most likely to take to it, and with additions came riskier and more 'frivolous' planting, such as small flowering plants, plants requiring large amounts of water, non-edible shrubbery, and medicinal species.

She joined him without a word, pulling what looked like dandelions from large pots of poppies. She'd never weeded before – she'd helped him seed one of the fields the other day, but not weed.

Stepping to the nearest poppy, she grabbed a weed stalk. Oops, that one came off without the roots. But it was small, there's a big one. Slowly.

The roots slipped out, so carefully, with little tugs. She tossed the thing into the pile she had started, and began to slowly pull another, nearby.

Glancing up, she met Knives' gaze. She hesitated, and turned back to her work.

She felt him staring at her. In the corner of her eye, she saw him climb to his bare feet and walk to her.

Her third weed came out.

Knives grabbed the next nearest to her and gave it a quick yank. Out it came.

She went for number four and tugged. It caught, and snapped off. She tried another, it also left its roots behind.

"You're grabbing too tight and pulling too slow," he suggested. With dirty fingers, he grasped her hand loosely and brought it to hover over a particularly large dandelion. Their hands rested gently upon the stalk. "Like this," he offered, guiding her with his hand atop hers, with a swift motion. "Perfect." Pulling his hand away, he met her eyes. "Slow and gentle."

Vanessa watched him walk back to his spot and yank weeds with ease. She breathed a sigh and let her nerves unwind, her stomach and throat unknot. The weeding continued without further incident.


	3. 3 Words

By nightfall, they were again in the desert, riding toward a plant complex far to the East, before the cliffs. Vanessa sat beside him. The many provisions they required on a longer trip filled the cart's back section. She munched on chunks of dried fruit from a first canvas sack. A second sack in her grasp held roasted nuts, products of her first nut-roasting attempt. With a serious expression, she took another dried date from the bag. "I think it means 'energy' or something. It's definitely a word, just not a word that's been used much for a few hundred years. There are many times more words in a dictionary than there are words in common language."

Knives scoffed. "Then it isn't really a word anymore. If someone says, 'I'm full of verve today,' and everyone else says, 'full of what?' then it shouldn't count as a word in the language. That's all I'm saying."

"That's the way language works."

"Human language," he corrected. There was an awkward pause – they generally avoided bringing up humans, and their topics for conversation were remarkably limited as a result. He watched her take another handful of nuts and pick at them. "May I have some?"

"Have some fruit instead," she offered. "You don't want any of these."

"Sure I do, protein."

"No, you really don't."

He grabbed the bag from her lap and looked into it questioningly. "What'd you do to them…"

"I cooked them," she replied. "Not well."

Knives winced as he crunched into a handful.

"See, somehow, I know I messed them up." She reached for them.

"Well, you didn't cook them, not all the way. They're raw." He snapped a peanut in half to show her.

She sunk into her seat. He continued to eat them.

"And the word 'peanut' is another example of language absurdity. It isn't a pea, it isn't a-"

"So what are they called in plant?" she snapped. "Pompous ass…"

He gave the bag back to her and stared forward, silent. Knives supposed he'd angered her, but he hadn't meant to. That was supposed to be a conversation. "Vanessa-"

"Is that why Callisto 'left you' or was it worse?" she continued, face turning a shade of red that offset her scarring. "She wasn't me! What did you do to her?"

"I-I…nothing, I did nothing but-but-" he stuttered.

"She was only a child, even if she did LOOK like a woman, she, how could-"

"I didn't touch her!" he roared, interrupting. Were he observing as an outsider, he'd have marveled that it took him that long for his temper to boil. It was difficult to be angry with her anymore. It was difficult to feel anything much, anymore. Nevertheless, his voice boomed. "I was waiting. She chose the plants over me, that wasn't my fault!"

"What makes you so sure?" she yelled back, scooting to the edge of her seat. "I'll bet she was a smart girl, she noticed the way you looked at her, she knew! Even if you didn't touch her, I'll bet she saw it in your eyes, her father figure, you perverted freak!"

"That's not true; you weren't there!" Knives became truly enraged. What right did she have, to be away for a hundred years and return thinking she KNEW him. She didn't know him! "I'd given up, because she didn't want that! Accusing me of…The nerve!"

Minutes wore into an hour, and he felt his anger melt away. The more he thought about it, the more he realized where she was coming from. He almost understood. Almost.

"I'm not a pervert," he asserted, turning to her with chin held high.

"Don't talk to me," she sneered. She was staring out – he could only see her scarred cheek, her opaque eye. His angel arm had done that to her. But it wasn't his fault.

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"I'm going riding, I'll be back by nightfall," she stated, mounting a tomas.

Knives was already at the complex doors, surprised to hear her speak – finally. He was going to protest, but she was already gone. "Be careful," he yelled.

Within the plant complex, the cool, bright bulbs were silent.

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Gripping the reins fiercely, Vanessa sailed over the sand dunes atop her mount. The breeze felt cool, flowing up her sleeves to dry the sweat. A few hours from the complex, from where she could still see the tallest spire, she kicked the tomas into a faster gallop and growled frustration to the wind. She spoke aloud to herself and her tomas, "superiority complex, selfish, paranoid, egotistical, sexually confused, close-minded," she rattled off, amongst other things.

Her tomas resisted for a moment, and she kicked him forward. "I'll water you in a minute," she reassured, forcing him into another run.

With a yelping squawk and a thud, she fell, tomas and all, face-first into the sand. Rising slowly with her elbows, she looked back to see a thin rope stretched between two rocks she'd just passed.

Someone ran up, kicking sand into her mouth; she had to close her eyes.

Rough hands grabbed her wrists and squeezed them behind her.


	4. 4 Broken

With her face ground into the sand and a stranger's knee in her back, Vanessa lay still. The knee pressed down, and she gasped. Her foot kicked up and contacted with something, perhaps a shoulder?

The man fell back, onto his rear. She heard her tomas pacing a few yards off. She had sand in her eye.

Lunging at her, the man shoved her head back into the sand and continued to tie her wrists.

She struggled. If she could pull her knees up…

Gaining just enough leverage to spring to her feet, she kicked him in the gut and backed away, tugging her wrists loose. One hand out. Then the next.

He was short, stocky, with black hair and a crazed look in his eyes. Again, he lunged, and she was taken down.

She shoved him off with her knees and punched his jaw.

Grabbing her throat, he climbed between her legs.

Vanessa snapped.

Executing moves she hadn't used in ages, she fought him with quick punches and high kicks. It only took a few moves to get him down, and he fell heavily.

The sounds of her heavy breathing and his gasping filled the air.

Leg, compound fracture, broken through tibia and fibia. Shoulder, dislocated. Fingers, probably broken. Possible concussion.

She, on the other hand, was unharmed. Backing up slowly from his crumpled form, she approached her tomas.

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Knives had a speech prepared. He was going to tell her about what he'd meant, about language, about peanuts, and he thought he should lead in to an explanation of Callisto. He'd gotten hungry and had cooked up several zucchini with mushrooms in a garlic broth. Full, he waited inside the complex for her to return. The cooling bowl at the head of her sleeping bag filled the air with an acrid garlic smell.

He was going to simply lie there, ready to go to sleep, and he would start talking to her as soon as she got settled in.

In the meantime, he'd read to the plants. How boring.

Her footsteps sounded faint at the entryway and picked up pace. She was running to him? But then the sound faded and echoed down a hall. And again, the running, back out of the building.

Tinkering with old technology at an hour like this, he wondered, outside, no less?

"Where are you going? I have something to tell you," he called, standing. He jogged casually to the entryway. "Did you find something?" he called out, turning out into the desert.

She was moving about hurriedly while kneeling and bent over in the sand, turned away from him. He squinted to see her in the moonlight. "Come inside, I'll get you some light," he offered, leaning against the complex wall beside him.

Between folds of her head-wrapping, her arm wiped at her forehead. "Knives, go inside," she ordered.

"Still that angry?" he asked, kneeling beside her. "I have an explanation f-"

"Go inside, Knives, please," she yelped, an attempted command broken by a wave of emotion.

Her hands rested on the ground and she was still, but shivering.

He touched her shoulder, it was cold and bare. Where was her shirt? And her robe? Ah, the robe, much the same shade as the sands before her, was laid out on the ground, over whatever she was working on. A large something.

She was glaring at him, her eyes glittering between narrowed lids. He stood to leave.

But what was that? The wind was still, but the robe rustled. Glancing over, he saw an outline of the form beneath the cloak.

"Who's that?" he asked casually. Who? Who? He felt his heartbeat quicken, his lungs worked for air. Taking a step back, his mouth hung open. With a jolt, he reached for Vanessa's shoulder and he tugged her away from…someone…?

"Ow!" She pulled away. "I told you to go inside. Now…"

It was too late – his left arm was already aglow.

Vanessa held her arms out to block his knives. "Stop it! He's already dead!"

"He? He's not dead, I saw him move. Step away!" he roared, shoving her aside.

She reeled and punched him in the jaw.

The angel weapon retracted and Knives' hand went to his face. That hurt…it hurt quite a bit!

"I'm tending to his wounds, I need my medicines, and you will not kill him," she sneered through bared teeth. "He's no threat like this, I've beaten him near to death already, so you will BACK OFF."

"Where did he come from, are there more?" Knives demanded, the old hatred rising within him.

"He won't say, and you won't be torturing it out of him," she snarled, raising her fists for a fight. "I know what I'm doing, now you go back inside or I'll break something of yours, too!"

Knives stood there, blood pulsing, fists balled at his sides. If she really meant to fight him, and this human was truly incapacitated, his best option was to leave. If not, he would surely kill the man.

Vanessa watched him storm away, and returned to finish setting the human's shoulder in the moonlight.


	5. 5 Resolve

When Knives awoke, Vanessa was outside. Seated with her back against a pitched tent, she stared at the complex with tired eyes. She was wearing a spare shirt and cloak, pulled close. Her head-cloth was wound about her; he could only see her eyes, and she was watching him like a hawk.

Neither had slept a wink. They warily eyed each other as Knives placed his backpack beside the supplies in the cart. He stood in the sand, staring down at her. "I won't allow this," he stated plainly, crossing his arms.

She glared up, and pulled the cloth open at her mouth. "You're not killing him."

"Vanessa, I admire your resolve, really," he attempted, adjusting his folded arms. "But I will never allow a human near my home. I intend to kill him."

"I know. And-" She paused. "Did you say 'your home?'"

"Yes. It's my home, and it's your home. I will not suffer humans where I live, no matter where that is or who disagrees."

"Cute, Knives. In that case, I'm staying here, where it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to fix him up, and we'll run out of food and water, and you can have your home all to your damn self! AGAIN!"

Knives held his hands out in a calming gesture. "Vanessa, you don't know what you're saying. Humans should've all left ages ago, and they're supposed to be gone now. This one's a mistake I aim to correct."

"No good can come of his death, and you have no right to decide-"

"…Who will live and who will die? Please, you sound like…" He stopped, feeling queasy. "It's a flawed philosophy and yes, noble, but this is self-defense."

"Preventative murder is still murder, it's not self-defense, he doesn't know where we live, he was iles from the plants, obviously making no attempt to come near them at all, he's unarmed, he's defenseless, he's injured badly, and I'll be the first to beat the living crap out of him should self-defense come up again, but no one is killing a human in cold blood! Not under my watch! So you can get to the reins and take us home, or you can get to the reins and take yourself home. I don't care."

Dropping to his knees before her, Knives gritted his teeth as a migraine swept through his brow. "You intend to stay here? With him?"

"Absolutely. I'm sure I can make do with what's left in the medical bay here. I figure after a couple of weeks of healing, he'll be good to go. I keep him tied up, blindfolded, like he is now, then I dump him back where I find him and hope to God to never lay sight on him again. So you just get the hell out of here, and don't come back."

Leaning forward on his hand, Knives' face came an inch from hers. His free arm darted forward and jerked the tent flap open.

Vanessa grabbed his wrist, squeezing it threateningly. She raised her free hand in a fist.

Inside the tent, he saw the human, shivering in pain, with splinted arm and leg. Strips of what was Vanessa's shirt were wrapped about his head and were tied to various scratch wounds on his limbs.

With a shudder of disgust and a touch of awe, Knives glanced to her, to the human, and back to her. "You did that?" It was difficult to imagine Vanessa beating a man senseless, or anyone for that matter. She certainly couldn't do all that before, when she hardly took a swing to him at all, in even the most desperate circumstances.

Vanessa twisted his wrist until he dropped the tent flap, and eyed him defensively. "Seeing a human took me by surprise. I got scared, and I overreacted."

Overreacted? How could simple fright lead to such a beating? If she would risk her own health to save the human from Knives, why would she harm him so in the first place? What had he done to deserve that (besides being born, Knives murmured)?

Knives' insides went numb. "Show me your injuries," he half-asked, half-commanded.

"Don't have any."

Knives knew that was a lie. She couldn't have done that to the man and be totally unscathed herself. Besides, the wind was low; she would not normally wear her head-wrap in mild conditions. Obviously she was hiding injuries. He took a calming breath and thought.

Leaning back on his heels, Knives' hands went to his temple, where he attempted to massage away the pounding. "I just want to make sure you're alright. I give my word, I will not kill him in the middle of this conversation."

Vanessa's lips drew tight. She unwound the wrappings. It looked like her face had been rubbed in sand, fresh scabs across the plane of her forehead, nose, chin, and cheek. "I fell off my tomas. If I showed you, you would have assumed he did it," she stated plainly.

He gritted his teeth. She was right. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Vanessa frowned, the wrappings now wound round only her neck. "Well, I fell pretty hard," she replied edgily. "I scraped up my hands and bruised myself here and there. I'll be fine, but him..."

"He didn't touch you. Good. You've become a little more dangerous than the old Vanessa, haven't you," he wondered aloud, head, heart pounding. "Tougher, too. I would worry about you being alone with the human, even bound, if it weren't for your new…proficiency…in self-defense."

"Thanks, I suppose that's a compliment. I've grown, that was a part of growing."

"Did you fall off your tomas before or after you were spooked by the human?"

"He was the reason why."

"Ah, ok. I'd been wondering how your discovery must have gone. It all makes sense, now. You were riding, you fell off the tomas, onto your face, because you saw a human and were startled into doing such a thing. So you fell on your face and proceeded to leap to your feet and fell the man so thoroughly, because you were startled. You broke his bones and split his head open, because you were startled. Thank you for being so honest with me."

She didn't reply.

That was sarcasm, wasn't it? He meant it as sarcasm, but maybe he'd messed it up.

"I'm being sarcastic," he added.

"No, really?"

"Tell me the truth," he insisted. His left forearm tingled.

"What if the truth is dangerous to him?" she asked, not meeting his eyes. "If he laid a finger on me, would you kill him?"

"I already want to kill him," he corrected, face reddening.

"But you haven't yet, and I like to think that's out of respect for my wishes."

He could smell the reek of human emanating from the tent behind her, surmised he wouldn't be able to eat for days. The odor was like livestock, mingled with a heady scent of plant gore. Knives supposed that she was right; that her words kept him from carving up this vermin.

"Too bad you aren't driven by morals, you know, thou shalt not slaughter, things like that."

"This is not a joke, Vanessa," he snapped, pupils fading as the blades rose and his skin took on the glowing pallor. "Humans…they….If he hurt you, it changes the situation. Considerably."

"No, the situation is still the same. Me and that guy, we're even. He can't do a thing to you, or to me. PUT YOUR BLADES AWAY! I don't believe in killing an aggressor that can be felled by something less than death! Stupid me for thinking you might one day agree," she lamented, standing and tugging Knives up by the shoulders with hands obscured by baggy sleeves. "If the best I can get is you 'respecting my wishes' then so be it, and don't come near this complex again! If you see me again, it'll be when I want you to!"

Knives stepped back, angel arm forced into dormancy to avoid cutting her. For a moment, he felt he should apologize. But he'd done nothing wrong. "I want you safe," he shot back. "All of our kind, we-"

"No you don't, you just want to be Millions Knives again!" she shouted; it hurt as the bruised skin around her neck moved. The man had tried to choke her, bind her…Knives didn't need to know any more than he already did. She walked forward, giving him little shoves to move him toward the cart. "You were supposed to have changed!"

"I what?" he replied, incredulous, as he was pushed.

"Nevermind! Just leave! You're making me sick!"

Knives grabbed her by the collar. "Making you sick? You're making ME sick, with that human stench!"

"Don't touch me," she snarled, tensed to fight him.

His grip loosened, and he turned to the toma cart, silent. He breathed heavily through gritted teeth, and could hear her puffing similarly. He couldn't force her to do anything, or risk her revulsion – not again. The situation was beyond appalling.

"I can't leave you here, with him; it's not safe," he called over his shoulder, finally breaking the tension.

"Well, you're certainly not staying! I can handle myself."

"You're unarmed. Take a blade with you, something," he insisted. The human's bones were broken and bound, but he still wanted her to have something with her…something to compensate for her lack of angel arm ability.

"Fine." She watched him pull a utility knife from his belt, without mentioning that she was in fact armed, with the angel arm that Knives didn't know had been restored.

He dropped the knife into the sand between them and rummaged through the cart supplies. Head spinning, he loaded his pack with just enough provisions for himself and one tomas. "There are emergency rations and water reserves in the floor hatch of the kitchen storage closet." Knives unhitched one of the three creatures from the cart and mounted it. He paused. "Promise me one thing: When you're done with him, when you take him out; don't turn your back on the man unless he's tied to something."

"Promise."

Knives frowned, and kicked the tomas into a stride. He rode away, clutching his cheek. The left side of his face hurt, and his jaw bone throbbed. She'd punched him pretty hard. It didn't hurt while he and she were arguing, but now alone, the pain came in waves. Cursing himself under his breath, he stared forward. If even one more plant was enslaved, one more assault made upon them or Vanessa…he was fairly sure he couldn't cope.

The second sunrise was beautiful.


	6. 6 Kitten

The hood over his head was making him hot and uncomfortable, she knew. But it was necessary, at all times. For the entire trip back to the spot where she encountered him, the hood stayed on him, only pulled up so far as the nose so that he could drink or eat. His bones were mended, for the most part, and he was, as ever, tightly bound. His covered body groaned slightly with the bumps of the cart, which was essentially just a gutted truck with the top of the cab and the front engine portion removed.

It had been an interesting two weeks. She kept the man blindfolded and tied, and did not speak a word to him but to explain his injuries. Texts in the computer archive of the plant complex served to entertain her while she waited out his recuperation.

Finally, it came time to end this mission of hers, and she was eager to be rid of the man.

She sang to herself, to calm herself and also possibly the man, but otherwise said nothing. When she reached the rocky hills where she found him, she lifted him as best she could and dragged him from the cart onto the sand. Sweaty, tired, she took the backpack she'd fixed for him and dropped it a few feet to his left, with a large tank of water and two canteens.

Stooping by the toma to catch her breath, she paused in thought. A tomas licked her cheek with its long, thin tongue. "Cut it out," she mumbled, pulling her hair back into place. She looked at the figure against a rock and his little pile of provisions. It was a sad situation, and she pitied him, but she also felt some anger at his attack. She approached him.

"Nod if you understand me."

He nodded.

"Listen, I don't care who you are, and I don't care for you to know who I am. Let's just act like we never met, and you go about your business. I'm leaving you with goods enough to last you a trip back to wherever you're from, and that's the best I'm going to do. It wouldn't be so bad to see you rot and die, so consider yourself pretty lucky that you have what I'm giving you." She untied his splinted leg from his good leg and unwrapped the cords from his thighs and shoulders. Eying the rock behind him, she considered the promise she'd made to Knives. Instead, she removed all of his bindings but the one at his wrists, and tugged the ropes a little for effect. "I'm tying you to this rock, and I plan to be history by the time you get loose." If he thought he was tied to the rock, that was good enough, she didn't have to tie him to it, really, she decided.

Vanessa made her way back to the cart, and check the reins. Oh, she'd forgotten to close up the back of the cart.

With a slam, it was done, and she walked to step up into her seat.

With a thud, she fell, unconscious, back onto the sand.

O

O

Crouched in a blanket atop his shack, Knives stared out into the clear, starry night, sipping warm cider and worrying entirely too much.

A trip to the December plant complex was scheduled for the sixteenth day after he'd left Vanessa, and though Knives wanted to stay at the garden to await her arrival, he owed it to the plants – and maybe, also, to Vanessa – to go about as usual. The cart was ready, and he'd leave at first dawn.

Palming the jug with both hands, he gazed out over his moonlit garden. It was an expansive complex, iles long and iles wide. There was too much plant life to tend to, so he'd allowed the great majority of the garden to grow unchecked, with automatic watering from the underground lake (plant-created, of course). A large section to the upper right was devoted to a covered, wet forest that had constant watering. To the lower right, a much larger, less exotic forest that was set up for weekly watering. The furthest chambers he tended to were the delicate plant areas. Beyond were huge chambers where many sort of tree, vine, insect, cat, whatever, were allowed to thrive unchecked. These, and the vast fields at left for a hundred species of crops, were protected at the sides by a metal and plastic barrier, from the sand and wind. This valley was as large as an Earth continent, but still he called it a valley, his valley. The valley housed his massive garden. Every six years he added an extra ile or two of chambers onto the three sides, and seeded for more fields, forests, and the like.

Knives felt a stir in his lap, and brought his hands into the blankets to touch the kittens. He ran his fingertips carefully along little heads and legs and bellies, and the mound of creatures grew still once more, slumbering in the warmth.

The first time he came to her with a blanket full of mewing bodies, her eyes had flown wide and she seemed shocked. He'd sat her down in the garden and explained how to handle them, in case she didn't know. She'd had the most bizarre expression on her face. That was the day after her arrival. The kittens seemed too much for her.

Knives was getting tired and chilled. He gathered the bundle of nineteen kittens into their blanket and held them carefully in his arm, cider jug in the other, as he hopped off of the roof into the sand. The kittens were taken back to one of the barns, and Knives curled up, alone, in his bed, attempting to calculate the probability of her return for the coming days.


	7. 7 Storm

With the first light of morning, Knives departed to the complex for calibration, on schedule. The cart he took was small, almost too small. Vanessa had the best traveling cart, so it was either use this tiny one, or the very large one he preferred to use only for hauling large salvage items for construction. Equipment and provisions were tied to the sides and high atop, but the toma were certainly faster with this lighter load.

This was the sixteenth day he'd gone without her. It was just like before. Silent, maddening.

Knives wondered if he'd woken up, sixteen days ago, from a powerful hallucination. She may never have come back. It may all have been a lie.

She hadn't arrived with many belongings, all of which were no longer around. There was no evidence that Vanessa wasn't simply still on Earth, with Tessla, with the humans, with Vash…

What if it was a dream? There was no Vanessa, just like there were no humans. A human showing up in the middle of nowhere? Preposterous. He should have realized it before, it was all a dream.

"No it wasn't," Knives grumbled aloud. "She's out there, she's coming back."

Then what about the human? A hundred years since the ships took all of the humans from Gunsmoke, and at least one human is still here. Generations later, humans were alive, and that meant multiple humans…perhaps a whole population of the creatures. Knives shivered.

If it wasn't real, then the humans weren't real. If that meant no Vanessa, would it be ok?

O

O

Vince grinned, tearing a piece of jerky off with his teeth. "Good to ride and good to eat. Don't you just love toma?" he joked, and laughed again at his own comment, with bits of it stuck in his teeth. His laugh was low, throaty, and raspy.

Sighing, he ran his good hand past the bruise on his forehead, from head-butting her earlier, through his greasy black hair. Various freckles stood out on his cheeks and arms, and his arms were hairy and thick. "What was I saying? Oh, yeah. You're sort of the whole package, you know? You know how to beat a man, fix him up right well, and load him up with all manner of niceties to send him on his way," he noted, stroking his splinted leg absentmindedly. He waggled the jerky at her, chuckling. "But a man can't forgive a beatin' like that so easily! If you'd just given me a tomas we'd have been even."

Who'd have known that the wordless man she'd worked on for all those days was so mouthy? Wincing from the sharp pain at the back of her skull, Vanessa attempted to move. She'd just come to, and found herself in a low cave, tied tightly and completely to a stalagmite. She heard a familiar roaring sound outside.

Vince laid back onto bedding and propped his head up to continue talking with her. "Nice to have the company, 'specially company of such a pretty lady as yourself. Think I'll keep you around for a bit, you understand. Probably don't understand. I have my reasons though, I'm a reasonable man," he said proudly, before guffawing at himself again. "Think I'll keep my reasons to myself, for now though. A man's got to have secrets."

Her hands were tied together well; she couldn't get out of those. The only way out would be to angel arm.

But the sand storm raging outside and the low, tight cavity of the cave destroyed that as an option. She could burst and certainly ruin most of the cave in the process, but even if her arm could save her from the falling rocks of a cave-in, it would kill the man and the toma, and leave her to the ravages of the weather. There'd be no way home from that. When the storm was over, she could try it; the first chance she got, outside the cave, with a tomas safe, she'd do it. In the meantime…

"Don't bother tryin' to get away, miss. I'll treat you well. So where you from? What's your name?"

She attempted to hide her frustration – he seemed open enough that perhaps a friendly approach would buy her a safe way out of the situation. "Vanessa," she said with a slight smirk.

"Like I said, I'm Vince, nice to meet you. Would shake your hand, but-" He laughed again, and crawled over to lay blankets over her. "Boy, you sure talk funny. All big words and such. Never heard someone talk so…rich. Don't think you're from the settlement, so you mind telling me where you live? Where you took me?"

The settlement? "I don't live anywhere," she replied, calm. "I'm nomad. Don't have a place to call home."

He smiled, studying her. "Mmm-kay. Alright, well, Vanessa, I figure the storm'll die down enough by morning that we can make it to the settlement. Great place, you'll love it."

She puckered her eyebrows together. "But my family!"

"Sorry, miss. Don't think I can let you loose, not in good conscience. You'll like it at the settlement, don't worry. No more wandering for you, darlin'."

'Settlement' implied many more humans. She immediately changed her mind about escaping, opting to satiate her curiosity about this 'settlement.' There'd have to be an opportunity to run away, later. She'd certainly find a way back to the garden, with a tomas and water and food, at least. Maybe without hurting anyone.

Vince's smile flickered in the light of the little campfire. "See you in the morning, then," he murmured, rolling on his side under blankets.

Vanessa tilted her head back against the stalagmite as the wild winds battered the terrain outside.


	8. 8 Sale

The sandstorm dulled to a light dusting by first noon, and they were off. Vanessa found herself tightly bound, consistently. Her curiosity nagged her to see what this settlement would be like. He didn't seem intent on harming her, he didn't blindfold her, she could see where she was and where she was headed, there was no urgency to get away.

For the next several days, Vanessa noted the geography carefully. She was led through rocky terrain, over what she would describe as small mountain ranges. The land was strange, but sustained more life than the desert did. The occasional cacti or lizard dotted the landscape.

Days into the journey, when their supplies were nearly gone, she saw a glitter off in the distance.

"This is the settlement," Vince described, smiling wide. "Good to be home, isn't it?" he added, laughing. "I sure missed it. It'll be good to see the family again, I'm sure they're still as poor and desperate as ever. That's why I was out there, you know. Where we met."

The settlement was expansive, with homes of stones and scrap as far as she could see. Shaded by high rock formations, the settlement was abuzz with activity in the afternoon cooling. Some people shouted to them and ran about. Vince led the toma to a large structure at the edge of the settlement, where a large man was stationed at a doorway. Dirty little children were pointing at Vanessa and making faces.

"This is your stop, little lady," Vince mentioned. "I've got mouths to feed, maybe they won't go hungry now. Trying to feed them before got me stuck out in the wasteland, but now everything should be ok. For a while, at least."

Stuck in the wasteland…to feed his family? Why would a person wander so far out, no supplies or transport, scavenging for food? she wondered.

Vince halted the toma and hobbled onto the sand to retrieve Vanessa. "Sure you're tired of the ropes, but don't worry, no more of them." Leaning down, he untied her thighs and shins with his free hand, leaving her to stand on her own with only her ankles bound. "It's been fun, miss. Sorry 'bout the treatment, but I'm sure you understand. It's for my family." He smiled, and nodded to the large man.

The strange man was obviously very strong, muscular, with tattooing on his bare chest. He said nothing, simply opened the door he was planted near, and handed Vince a pair of cuffs.

Vanessa's heart dropped.

Working around the ropes, Vince secured one separate cuff tightly around each of her wrists and ankles. The large man shoved Vanessa inside a dark room. She could see Vince mounting the toma cart, and the door shut.

She felt her body pulled backward, into the room, by her wrists and ankles. She stumbled, trying not to fall, tugged until a loud clang rang out and she was stuck. At her back, it felt cold, like a metal pole. The cuffs must be magnetic, she realized, ears trained on any clue of her situation. It was dark and hot in there, musty with the smell of a barn. Men's voices murmured through the walls.

Moments passed until she heard a creak and light shone in, as if a door had opened behind her. One by one, the windows opened. A young girl was going along the wall, pulling on cords to lift window covers on one wall. The room was bright with the suns, illuminating the girl's fiery red hair. The girl turned to face Vanessa, a bundle of cloth and scissors in her arms. She rested her bundle on the floor.

Vanessa eyed her as the pudgy girl untied her ropes. She could hardly move. Craning her head around, Vanessa peered towards the open door. She saw a group of men with guns, watching, from the doorway.

"You look about ten, is that right?" Vanessa whispered to the girl. "What's your name?"

The girl did not respond, nor lift her eyes from her work.

"What am I here for? What's going on? I didn't do anything wrong, this man kidnapped me and now I'm here, and I just want to go home. Can you help me, please? I want to see my family again, I have a-" Breathing in sharply, she stopped. She sounded as desperate as she was becoming.

Dropping the last of the ropes onto the floor, the girl reached for her scissors and began to cut away Vanessa's clothing.

"What are you doing?" Vanessa whispered. "Stop!"

Again eliciting no response, Vanessa felt her clothing fall away. The cold blade of the scissors was moving up her leg, slicing away her pants. It was about to leave her nude. She jerked away.

Yelping, Vanessa suddenly became very still. That scissor blade was stuck in her thigh, just a little, and the girl drew it out slowly, wiped the blood away, and continued her work. When Vanessa was exposed, the girl walked back to the door, and returned with a bottle and a cloth.

The armed men, who'd been chatting casually all the while, laughed.

The girl poured what smelled like whiskey into the cloth and into the wound, cleaning and sterilizing it. Vanessa remained still, and allowed it. The girl wrapped a bandage around Vanessa's thigh and dropped the scissors into her chest pocket. She pulled from the pocket a small slate and a chalky rock.

Looking at her teeth, her skin, her hair, her eyes, the little girl gazed with a dead expression and jotted things on the slate. Finished, the girl walked back to the door and came back to face her once more. She held out a simple dress of brown cloth, like her own tan one, and spoke softly. "Put this on, now."

Vanessa felt like crying, and suddenly her mind was full of rage.

The girl pulled a strange plastic item, like a key, from her pocket and she bent down to the base of the pole, beside Vanessa. With a turn, the magnet effect was gone, and Vanessa's body fell from the pole very suddenly, onto her knees.

Shaking, Vanessa pulled the dress over her head, over her wrist cuffs. She walked to the pole, holding out her cuffs, and waited for the girl to reach down to turn the key.

Taking the girl by surprise, Vanessa kicked the girl in the throat, then the gut, with her weighted hand, and pulled the scissors from the felled girl's pocket. She assumed a hostage-taking pose and turned to face the armed men.

Their gun barrels trained on her.

"I'll do it," she sneered, pressing the blade against the girl's throat. "I'll kill her. You give me a tomas and a week's supplies, and she lives."

A man in the back of their group held up the slate and called out, "She's worth at least twice the girl."

She heard Vince's voice from within the next room. "Don't kill her!"

"You're a slave…too…" she whispered next to the girl's ear. Vanessa's heart sunk lower, and she reluctantly dropped the scissors back into the girl's pocket.

The gunmen were laughing heartily once more. She heard one joke addressed to Vince about how he would've lost a good chunk of the profit to repay the owner of the girl.

As Vanessa stepped back to the post, she saw Vince nod, relieved. "Cow almost cost me some cows," he replied, to laughter.

The girl winced, but followed Vanessa to the post, where she reached down to reactivate the magnet.

"I'm so sorry, I would've let you go, I'm so sorry," she whispered to the girl.

The girl said nothing. Maybe that sort of thing happened to her all the time.

Once more held tight to the post, the gunmen draw back from the doorway, and two men in old suits and tattered ties walked in, with Vince.

"This, gentlemen, is Vanessa," Vince told them with a smile. "Tall and lean, muscular and of the best age, this naturally blond and lively filly will be a welcome help to any home in the settlement. Don't mind the scars, don't mind the attitude, she's a beauty and she's smart, with knowledge of traveling and medicine."

"Not exactly the subservient type, though," one of the buyers interjected, chuckling.

"That can be learned," Vince countered, smiling. "She found me in bad shape out there, gentlemen, but you see she mended my broken bones and sewed closed my wounds, and never have you seen such a quick heal!" he announced, gesturing to his healing ailments. "She even gave me potions that kept away the pain! Why, I swear by my clan that it's true. For the most sensible price of four toma, ten cows, and twenty goats, she can be yours."

One man shook his head, while the other held up a finger to Vince. "She's blind in one eye. And it hurts to look at her, gah, from ANY direction. Two toma, not four, and you have a deal."

Vince frowned. "Three."

"No, two."

Smiling, Vince nodded. "Deal, then, sir. I'll retrieve them now, then?"

"Yes you may," answered the man with the ruffled red tie as he stepped a bit closer to his new purchase.

"Treat her nice, Tamber, sir, she's special," Vince said in parting to the new owner, slapping Vanessa's rear before leaving. The metal heel of his leg splint dragged in the dirt as he exited.

Vanessa filled the air with curses and swearing terms the settlement was largely unfamiliar with, but the sound was drowned out by laughter.


	9. 9 Home

Seven smiling faces greeted Vanessa at the Tamber clan's slave quarters. All dressed similarly to herself, all with smaller versions of the cuffs she wore.

Her wrist cuffs were stuck together by a small magnet, but her ankle cuffs were separate. She was worn out from the journey, the situation, and the long walk to the Tamber district of the settlement. Shoved forward, she was within the quarters, and the door slid shut behind her with a click.

"Oh, locked in, locked in," a man nearby whined. He was middle-aged, but spoke with a high-pitched, child-like voice. Clearly, the man had disabilities; his left hand was underdeveloped, and he didn't seem the only mentally challenged one in the place.

"Fought them, you stupid, you aren't supposed to fight!" another disabled slave cried out, finger pointed accusingly. She was young, probably in her twenties. "Stupid, stupid!"

Two other young men, and the middle-aged fellow, began to chant 'stupid, stupid, stupid.' Two older women hushed them, and a younger woman just out of her teens went to Vanessa apologetically. "Sorry about that, miss, they get antsy with the lock. Ain't locked hardly ever! Wow, look at you, you're positively a MESS! What's your name, dear, you're safe now."

Vanessa tugged at her wrists – they were still stuck by the magnet. She sighed. "Vanessa," she murmured, looking around, taking in her surroundings to the sounds of shushing and 'stupid, stupid.'

The disabled slaves quieted into giggles and motioned to seat themselves on the floor. The rest seated as well, and Vanessa sat – or rather, crumpled.

"This is Vanessa, everybody," the young girl cheerily announced, absentmindedly tugging at her long, black hair. "Are you scared, still, Ness? May I call you Ness?"

"Learned your lesson, then, no need for violence," an older woman whispered to Vanessa, nodding knowingly. The disabled four nodded along with her.

"I'm Yola," the young girl offered, smiling, and began to list off everyone's names. "This is Troy, Merle, Dax, Ar-"

She stopped and twirled as the door clicked and slid open, letting bright rays into the musty hut. "New girl," a young boy's voice commanded, as his thin frame silhouetted in the light. "You're called to the main house."

The slaves beamed, as though that was a wonderful thing.

Vanessa didn't care to feel the same. Nevertheless, she stood and stepped out into the sun once more as the other slaves waved to her. She followed the lad, a mere 13 by the look of it, with skin like ochre and shiny black hair. He led her to a large building, that hardly looked like a 'main house,' not like the somewhat-cleaner and nicer stone buildings she'd passed. Inside, she knew this was a barn.

The boy motioned for her to sit in the dust, which she reluctantly did. "The name's Tamber Luke. 'Sir' to you. My dad's the clan head, so you'll do what I tell you to, got it?" he demanded, standing over her as menacingly as a 13-year-old gangly kid could. "Where did you come from?"

She thought, smiling slightly. "I'm a nomad."

With a hard slap to her face, the boy grimaced. "Where?"

Vanessa's head remained to the side, cheek tingling. She was a bit shocked. "Nowhere-"

Slap!

Moving to stand, the boy shoved her back to the ground, and slapped her again.

She glared up at him. A bead of sweat ran into her bad eye.

Slap! "You're going to tell me!" Slap!

Lips pursed, she saw him gear up for a left hook, and dodged. The boy pulled back, and she fell onto her side, the weight of the cuffs at her back off-setting her balance when she avoided his blow.

Luke laughed, an eerily young laugh, and walked over to kneel over her. His smile became a frown as he saw her expression not of fear or reverence, but of pure anger. Slaves know their place; he'd have to teach her! Pinning her thighs with his knees, he crawled atop her, and reached to untie her clothing.

With a low growl, she head-butted him, and kicked him in the back to fell him. Scrambling away, she rushed to the nearest tomas, unhooked its reins from its cell with her teeth, and used a stool in the cell to climb atop it. The tomas sauntered to the door and nudged it open, startling several farmhands outside. Unable to grip the reins, Vanessa kicked the tomas' sides to break it into a run.

Instead, it threw her, and she landed hard on her back.


	10. 10 Angels

"You really aren't from around here, are you?" Merle questioned, daubing a wet cloth against Vanessa's swollen, bloodied face. "Beating up the master's son, stealing a tomas…you're lucky the Tambers are so forgiving."

Vanessa scoffed, shifting uncomfortably against the wall. The magnetic strip in the wall was now active, and she was stuck by her hands, behind her back.

"Really, Ness, your attitude will have to change! The nerve! I'll tell you, uglying up this face won't help you none!"

Tilda nodded as she cradled the middle-aged, crying Dax. The woman looked so confused. "The Tambers will protect you until you die, Ness! Just do as you're told; you have a long life of food and water and shelter and protection ahead of you, but you want to throw it all away like that?"

"Poor little Luke!" young Yola exclaimed.

"He wasn't taking me to the main house, he took me to a barn! He tried to rape me!" Her voice cracked, and she closed her eyes tight, muttering, "Why do they do it? Always, they-"

"I thought it was a little early to go to the master's house," Merle murmured, as she stopped cleaning Vanessa and went to lay on a cot.

Yola smiled, blushing. "That Luke, he's a cute one," she offered, dreamily.

Vanessa was too busy rocking slightly and muttering to herself to notice.

"So you won't tell us where you're from, tell us, now, Ness, darling, who found you?" Tilda asked warmly, changing the subject.

Jerked back to reality, Vanessa's anger rose again. "Vince," she grumbled, tilting her head back against the metal. "And wouldn't you know it, he tried to rape me, too! And he kidnapped me and took me here…bastard-"

"Vince?" Arletta chimed, eyes wide. "But he got exiled!"

"Not anymore, Arletta, hon," Tilda corrected her. "He made it back, them's the rules."

Vanessa turned to look at her, questioningly.

"Oh, you don't know how any of this works, do you," Merle sighed, exasperated, from her cot. "Luvre Vince did crimes, he stole cattle, three of them, and so the Council sentences him to exile. That's when they take someone out to the desert with nothing, to just die. But if you make it back, alive, you get pardoned."

"What does someone have to do to get marooned like that?" Vanessa asked.

"Maroon?"

"Exiled," Vanessa rephrased.

"Something bad. Like stealing a lot of food or supplies or cattle, or hurting somebody real bad, or-"

"But that's if you're free!" Yola interjected, reading Vanessa's expression with horror. "That don't apply to you, Ness, oh no!"

Tilda nodded. "We don't get trials, we get the clan's say. Tambers, they're real generous people, real forgiving. But if you do something real bad, that's like to be the end of you."

The room went silent. All began finding their cots, save Vanessa, who didn't have that option.

"You're so lucky, Ness," Yola whispered to her just before turning in. "Please be good, now. We like you; you'll like it here, promise!"

O

O

Vanessa and the other slaves underwent the lockdown for five days solid, let out only to work. She always went with Yola to work on looms, but was told that the others did wash and tended to livestock. Remaining very quiet and calm, Vanessa watched Yola's weaving instructions with a studious eye, unable to help due to her cuffs.

Yola had a big mouth, and had told her about so many details of settlement life, thusfar. Everything came with an overly optimistic spin, but Vanessa smiled and nodded along.

On day six, their slave quarters, number nine of eleven, would remain unlocked, and her own cuffs would be changed for the smaller ones, freeing her up unless she should 'slip' again.

Scanning the room on the fifth day at the looms, Vanessa interrupted Yola's gossip. "Do you know the history of this settlement?" she inquired.

Yola's rosy face nodded as her eyes never left her work. "If you mean like, as in, why people set up here? Well, um, as I was told, there used to be a lot of people here, but these great ships, they came to take everyone away, lots of years ago. And all the folk that got on the ships, some people say they were bad folk, guilty of living off the angels, and that's a pretty bad thing to do in the eyes of God. So those people left off to Hell or wherever, leaving our ancestors here. The ones that stayed, some of them were criminals who were afraid to go to the ships, criminals that some of them were all deformed and weird looking and such. And most of the people that stayed, they were of a religion that worshipped the angels, that they called Trees or something like that." She could think of no more to say, and simply smiled dreamily to herself. Noticing finally that Vanessa's face was downcast and serious, Yola stopped her work to lean closer. "You didn't do sins on the angels, did you?" she whispered, eyes wide.

"I don't think so," Vanessa snapped, incredulous. "Life would've been easier if I did, huh?" she joked nervously.

"Oh, yeah, that's true, I heard it's easier to live off the angels, but you burn in Hell if you do, let ALONE if you go NEAR one. So we live like this, God's folk, waiting for the angels to bless us. All you gotta do is be good and do what you're 'sposed to, and they'll bless you, when you die," Yola continued, returning to her work and a louder volume of speaking. The rhythmic sounds of her loom became in beat with the other women's. "Angels are nice and pretty as could be, and I can't wait to see 'em!"

Smirking with a little poorly-hidden disgust, Vanessa nodded slightly. "Me too."


	11. 11 Hair

Crunching down on the woodchip-like disc that represented food to the rest of them, Vanessa winced. Yola assured her that the poor non-slaves went hungry, and they were lucky for the grub. She waited until Yola brought a dipper of water to her mouth, to drink. They were on their mid-day meal break.

Finally, someone came to change her cuffs, later than Yola had thought. A thick woman and a man stepped into the loom shack and identified Vanessa by her blonde hair and scabbed face. Wordlessly, the woman changed the cuffs, leaving Vanessa's wrists and ankles freer, lighter. "Thank you, Una," Vanessa muttered to the emotionless hulk of a woman.

Una left, but the clean-cut man remained. He was twenty-three, a bit heavy-set, with terrible acne. Tamber Kern, the second son of the master, smirked. "Get to work."

Yola smiled wide at Vanessa, blushing a little. She had informed Vanessa that, according to gossip, Kern had taken an interest to Vanessa, after the escape attempt. He wasn't very good looking, was pretty shy, but Yola insisted he was as kind as could be. And any slave who entered a sexual relationship with one of the Tamber's main house could very well see a bright future, possibly being promoted to food preparation for the highest Tambers.

Her face was healing up from Luke's attack, and Yola assured her she was looking 'awful pretty again, pretty enough for Kern.' Vanessa pretended that that excited her.

As Vanessa started on her own loom, clumsily acting out the motions Yola taught her, Kern watched. She smiled at him, earning his blush. The boy really did seem to have a thing for her.

The 'flirtation' continued. Kern never said much, but he watched Vanessa weave every afternoon for several days. She had a feeling there was something about her, the hair, the eyes, the figure, that was special in the settlement. That, or he liked girls with scars. Whatever the case, he asked her to follow him out of the loom shack one night, eliciting a bright blush from Yola.

"Good luck!" Yola whispered to her as she left.

Kern walked beside her, wordless, leading her out of the Tamber district.

Vanessa strained to hear the bits of conversation along the way, eyes darting about for an opening.

Suddenly, she was motioned to stop, in the bustling center of town. Kern sat on a slab of rock, while Vanessa stood before him. He smiled. "Sorry about Luke. I've never really liked people being slaves."

She looked down. He was clever, taking her there – she couldn't get away, not around so many people. No amount of hand-to-hand combat would free her from the square. "To tell you the truth, I liked it better when I wasn't a slave," she noted, shifting her weight uncomfortably.

He laughed, softly. She could barely hear him through the commotion of the crowd about them. "Sit next to me, please?" he asked, motioning to the stone. "So I can touch your hair?"

"Thank you," Kern said, happily, when she did so. He began caressing her hair, tracing her pointed ear with a finger. "You're so unusual."

She said nothing.

"A lot of our slaves have defects from birth, but you're a lucky one. Despite it, you're still smart. You're still beautiful." He sighed. "You must have so many stories to tell," he wondered, fingers moved now to trace the scarring on her cheek.

Flinching slightly, she kept still and stared forward.

Kern swept curly, dark brown hair away from his hazel eyes, and gently lifted up her arm to look at the scarring there. "I'm not going to hurt you. I like you. You're different. I'm tired of this place. I want to see the places you've seen. I want to hear your stories. It must have been great, to be nomadic!" He paused, as if in thought, his breath tickling the small hairs of her forearm as he went in for a closer look. "The kids used to beat me up a lot when I was young. I am a weak sort, not the kind of man this place reveres. We have that in common, being bullied. You must be from the desert, that's where you were spotted." Dropping her arm, he went back to lightly stroking her hair.

Vanessa turned slightly, studying his face as his eyes flitted about her. She couldn't read lustful intent in his expression. Besides, if he were going to try something, she doubted this society would allow it to happen in a populated area. He was grinning softly, almost serene. His eyes suddenly darted to hers.

"I want to run away with you," he whispered, serious. "Just you and me, far away from here. I could arrange anything. We'll wander as far as we can."

She felt her mouth hanging open a little, but closed it.

Too late, he already noticed the flicker in her eye, her excitement. "You'd just use me, though. You'd just trick me and leave me, I know it. Too bad, I wish I could trust you, then we'd both be free."

Gaze stuck to his, she felt her face relax. If only he was dumber than this.

"If I could give you anything, do anything for you, what would you want the most? What would make you happy?" he whispered, twirling her hair around his pinky. "Delicious food, the right to marry, your own home and clan, to live in the main house with me, what? Or do you just want…to go home…?"

"Yes," she whispered, narrowing her eyes honestly.

He grinned wide. "I want to go home with you."

Oops, not home, I'm nomadic, I have no home, she thought wildly, hoping she hadn't messed that up. "My home is wherever I want it to be."

"This isn't your home, because you didn't want to be here, with us."

"Basically, yes," she sighed, staring down at the cuffed wrists and ankles. Her dirty, bare toes stood in contrast to the reddish dirt. "Where I come from, no one owns anyone else."

"Ah, instead they carve each other up," he countered, chuckling. "Or is it just the pretty girls who get that treatment?"

Frustrated, Vanessa felt her face redden. "What would make YOU happy, sir?" she blurted out, thick with sarcasm.

He seemed amused. "When nobody's listening, I think I'd be happy to hear you call me Kern, ma'am."

She didn't smile back, and his face fell a bit. "I'd be happy to get out of this hell-hole. This place is full of people ruined from birth, bodies full of poison, not enough nutrition, ugly from living on nothing but stringy meat and roots. I think you can make me happy, Vanessa."

With those words, she shivered.

He felt it. "You ought to trust me. I'm the only core Tamber who doesn't take the slaves by force," he noted, proudly. "If you agree, I'll see to it that you're given a softer position in the main house. And you won't have to sleep with me to keep it."

"What do I have to do, then?" she inquired, eyebrow raised.

Kern leaned in to her ear to whisper his plan, hot breath giving her goose bumps. "Most of the toma, you know, they train them never to run, never to leave the settlement. Learned that the hard way, didn't you; try to get one of them to take off, they eject the rider. Keeps the hands from straying. One of the scavenger clan's agreed to rent me their traveler toma. Soon as everything's ready, I want to go out. Dad's permitted me to leave grounds for 2 days at a time, so I think once a week would be nice. You tell me what we need, I'll get it. I want to start as soon as possible."

To act as guide for this boy, on weekend outings – Vanessa's mind went abuzz with scenarios. She'd be given ample chance to escape.

"So you'll do it, then, of course. You'll be rewarded; just don't misbehave. Don't expect me to drop my guard, out there. Your eyes are like a wild bull, Vanessa. You can't be trusted, unless you're only acting to keep yourself alive, too. You'll be bound and there'll be an armed escort. Tomorrow at sunup, Una will meet you at your quarters, and we'll leave from there. I have food, water, cloaks, and a tent. What else will we need?" he wondered, awaiting her suggestions.


	12. 12 Tame

That night, Vanessa dreamt she had two winged children with Kern.

She awoke before the others, before first dawn, in a cold sweat. Perhaps acting the part of the subservient slave girl was affecting her more than she thought. Though she'd lain awake for so long, drafting plans for her imminent betrayal, she slept to images persuading her to stay. As if Yola's thoughts were seeping into her own, she wondered if she was lucky, if this life was good, safe. If she made it away, what would she do? Wander alone, trying to find a cave to survive in? Attempt to make it back to the garden, to Knives?

Sure, Kern had issues, but he had less than Knives. It had crossed her mind before, that coming back was to Knives was a mistake. Everything was fine, until they realized that humans remained. The state of the planet was different than they'd both assumed. Knives sanity had been hinging on the absence of humans.

These people were flawed, their society was flawed, and many of their people seemed heartless. But there were good people, too, and sparks of good within the rest. She couldn't agree with Knives, that they all deserved to die. Their flaws were likely exacerbated by their situation. Life was harsh, the death rate high, survival at the forefront of each day. Anyone in that state would degrade into a depraved version of themselves. It was Gunsmoke-syndrome.

She was certain that the settlement folk lived off of what Gunsmoke provided, not the plants. In fact, Yola had quite seriously explained to her that the complexes were hallowed grounds, that no man dared approach. Seeing a plant complex supposedly would lead to an early death and a plague upon your house.

Certainly, the well water they drew must have plant origins, but so far from a working complex, she believed that the planet was sustaining the underground reservoir on its own. Knives told her that only one plant, near the garden, was allowed significant output, and she doubted he was wrong.

But he was certainly wrong about the humans. Vanessa, over the past century and more, had been struggling over what to think of the humans – Vash and Knives eventually became the polar opposite sides of the argument. Time and thought proved to her that she was not strong enough to hold onto Vash's vision. And Knives was simply homicidal, to believe that his vision was correct.

She'd begun to think Knives' point of view had changed. The day she arrived, to reunite with him, she'd asked if he still wanted to kill the humans. 'I haven't been thinking about that for a while now,' he'd replied. 'I guess I'm not planning on it, no.' But that didn't mean he wouldn't work to keep 'his' planet Homo sapien-free.

It would be nice to pick my own fate, she thought bitterly, instead of having to consider what would be best for the most people.

I've got to escape, she thought, certain. I've got to get away from here, and back to Knives. Just to tell him what's here. Or, maybe, I shouldn't tell him anything, tell him all the humans are dead, maybe. But he wouldn't believe me, maybe I should just stay here and stand guard. Maybe I'll end up duking it out with him, angel arm to angel arm, to defend these people and their right to be alive.

Curling tight on her cot, Vanessa's heart sunk. Her angel arm (which was, actually, located in her back) was exhausting, confusing, destructive – she'd always used it for the general good of humanity, or so she believed. But she didn't particularly want to protect humanity's interests anymore. She wanted a life.

She didn't want to be the almighty guardian of this settlement. She didn't want to use her weapon again, to be that freak. She didn't want to see Knives on a rampage. She didn't want to fight him. She didn't want to kill him. She didn't want to die.

Vanessa was so, so tired.

O

O

Kern greeted her with a hug, awkward, rough, and quick. "So good to see you this morning! What an adventurous morning it is!"

Una grunted something, seeming less pleased than usual, distracted when she first arrived at the slave quarters to lead Vanessa to this barn. Turning, the mammoth woman busied herself with a pile of metal implements, clanking in the background to ignore the Tamber boy's excitement.

Vanessa remained stiff after he walked away from her. She stood there, still, wrist cuffs stuck behind her back by the magnet Una had brought. Cautiously eyeing her surroundings, she tallied up the supplies she saw, the bladders of water, the sacks of food, the bundled cloth. How much, how long, how many people…

"Dad's letting me stay out for as long as I want, this time," Kern stated in reflection, working to load the supplies into baskets at the rear of each tomas' saddle. "So I've gathered as much as I could, so we can turn back when we've used about half of the water."

"One third," Vanessa corrected. "You should always give yourself about two thirds for the journey back. Things happen, out there. Sandstorms, injuries, exhaustion, getting your water bag punctured, losing a tomas – you never can be certain that you can get back home as fast as you left."

"Really," Kern replied, somewhat disappointed. "Less distance out. Too bad. Still, with this much, we should be able to get to the edge of Glass Canyon, at least." He lifted large preserved bladders full of water onto the sides of the saddles. "Una, restrain her, we're ready to go."

Una stepped forward, past the pile of side arms she'd set out, with a ball of white twine in hand. She pushed Vanessa toward the nearest tomas, the one with twice as much weight as the other two and therefore the slowest, and lifted her upon its saddle. She was not as gentle as one might hope, especially once she began tying her up.

The twine was waxy, and was probably a type of sinew from an animal. It was tight and smooth, holding her fast. Her feet were knotted to the stirrups, her arms bound to her torso. She would be in trouble, should the tomas buck her or fall.

Tied so tightly, she knew she would serve only as a reference and guide, possibly as a navigator. The sinew was so tight, like plastic cord, not something she could struggle out of. Hopefully they'd untie her out in the wilderness. Probably not. It was more likely that she'd get the chance with a blade or sharp rock, to saw through the cords in secret. Worst case scenario, she wouldn't get a chance, and would have to lead them back to the settlement. It could take many trips out before she'd earn the trust and means to make her move.

Actually, there were far worse scenarios than that, but she assumed they wouldn't occur. She knew Una was willing to kill her, and couldn't predict Kern's intentions. The landscape they were to journey into probably wasn't territory she'd be familiar with. Things could get desperate. Things could get dirty.


	13. 13 Water

The land was foreign, so she kept her eyes trained star ward. Head tilted up as the tomas drudged along, twinkling constellations told her where she was, as clear as a map in hand. They were headed to the spot where Vince had been exiled, but wouldn't make it but halfway before the tired toma and short supplies would cause them to head back.

After a long day of journeying, it was nearly cold enough to camp. Kern and Una had drunk more water than they should've, being unfamiliar with the conservation rules of desert travel. Vanessa warned otherwise, but they didn't listen, and now supplies were at the critical point – if she could escape before sunrise, she'd have enough water and food to last the trip back to the garden, assuming she left the bare essentials for Kern and Una to return home, as well. And she did assume she'd leave them that.

Kern called out to halt the toma and Una went about untying Vanessa from the saddle. All but Vanessa unloaded their supplies and readied a large tent.

Staring out, Vanessa memorized the surroundings, scanning for rocks, caves, anything she could use. The high rock formations were smooth, and wouldn't be much help. A glint caught her eye, and she saw a blade shining in the moonlight, from the edge of a basket. Perfect! Pretending to wander about a bit, she stepped over to it.

Cold metal pressed against the side of her throat. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Una, brandishing a rusty firearm and a particularly nasty expression.

"I'll assume that wasn't intentional, this time," Kern called, rushing over. "But if you go near Una's weaponry again, she may have to ruin our fun!" He smiled nervously, lowering the barrel with his hand and pushing Vanessa to sit with the other. "Everything's fine now. You're sleeping in the cold tonight. Tie her to one of the rocks, give her a few blankets."

Ah, the irony. If she'd tied Vince to the rock, like she'd promised, Knives, then this never would've…She promised him. Knives stayed off, like she told him to, and he didn't kill the guy.

The night cooled, and the blankets couldn't still her shiver. Again, she found herself sleeping bound, something cold at her back. She always had something pressing into her back while she slept, these days. Now, it's something so cold. It used to be him, so warm.

She sighed, in spite of herself. Where did that come from?

O

O

Vanessa's arms were numb, come morning. Una untied her from the rock, without a word or glance of apology.

She would have liked to rub the feeling back, but her arms remained bound by the sinew from the morning before. The skin tingled, the limbs throbbed, such a nagging feeling. Her back ached from the rock, and she was exhausted from such a poor night's rest, propped against a rock. And she was still a slave.

Needless to say, it was not a good morning.

Being tied up was excruciating, she could barely tolerate another minute. She had been bought like cattle and was being jerked around like a prisoner. It made her ill. If she didn't get away from this soon, she might weaken and submit to being a slave.

Once they'd get back to the settlement, the sinew would come off, the magnet taken off, she'd be able to sleep laying flat, feed herself, go to the bathroom properly. But that was not good enough. That was worse than dying.

When Una pitched her over the tomas too hard, and she fell over the side, Vanessa snapped. That was simply the final straw. She said nothing, did nothing, just lay there, face red. Not a twitch did she betray as Una lifted her off her side and settled her into the saddle. As her feet were tied, she didn't try to kick the bitch in her ugly-ass face. No, she was still, calm, on the outside at least.

To her right was Kern, behind her Una, riding at a slow stride atop the toma. She saw Kern take a long swig of water, then pour some over his head. A low hiss escaped her lips that they didn't notice. She needed that water.

Vanessa had to free herself, and soon.

The sinew strings cut into her body all over, only her thighs, neck, and head unsecured. It was slavery or violence, and she was leaning evermore towards the latter.

She'd exercised her angel arm enough, acting as the secret Agent Peace on Earth for nearly a hundred years. Under close military supervision, after months of painful grafting and tests to 'resurrect' her partial core, she'd honed the skill. The once-excruciating effort became tolerable, more controllable, and felt euphoric in the most sickening way. In dreams, she'd pined for the feeling, that wonderful, sweet release. Since the accident, in which the enemy mines blew her legs away and her weapon went rogue, thoughts of using the arm aroused some nausea. Whenever her deeply-scarred thighs ached, whenever she tripped walking or running thanks to her new limp, whenever she recalled the extensive therapy and stress of so nearly losing her limbs, her stomach churned. That deep, physical pain, and the guilt of the many she'd killed in the accident…

It would all come rushing back, intermingled with new grief for whatever or whoever she would annihilate this time, with the memories she'd absorbed from Vash, and the memories of who had taught her about her 'gift' in the first place.

Knives.

Wouldn't he be proud, she surmised, staring at the tomas' neck muscles as they pulsed before her. For every time she used it, had he felt it? Wouldn't he feel it, too? Each time she used it, every human life she extinguished with it…did it earn a smile?

Una, behind her, wouldn't be touched. Kern might. When she'd used the weapon in the past, it always extended over her shoulders, and whipped out in front of her. Anything more than a foot behind her would be untouched, leaving Una free to shoot, slice, punch, whatever. That would result in an end to her slavery, and get her tortured for witchcraft, demonism, satanic worship, magic – whatever they were calling it these days. Not the best option.

After using it, she knew she'd be somewhat worn out. Her tomas was slower than the others, held the most water, and the least food. If she were to do it, she'd need to ensure Kern and Una were incapacitated, unable to reach her or follow her as she made her escape. Preferably, she'd be able to fell the two but leave them healthy and with the toma and supplies enough to get back to the settlement, preferably she wouldn't injure her own toma or lose supplies in the process.

She couldn't fully predict her arm, but she was pretty sure she'd be able to pull that off, if she could just get the two to walk their toma in front of her. They were sitting at her level, the toma's heads were low, and the angel arm whips, if only extended for a moment, might injure the toma and their riders, but only superficially. She'd pulled it off before, with dummies.

Here goes.

"My tomas' thirsty," Vanessa chirped, more cheerily than she meant. "It's best to water them early in the day, on trips, so it's stored in their guts by the time the suns are high."

Kern nodded to Una, slowing. He reached for Vanessa's tomas' bridle, stilling it as Una prepped a sip-sack. They sat, mounted, clustered, as Una watered each. As she finished, Kern released the bridle, and Una sat straight up, it was the perfect chance.

She'd forfeit proper provisions, but could survive on the water on her tomas. With Kern and Una so close, so perfectly in front of her, Vanessa knew this was her chance.

Concentrating for less than a second, she felt the searing heat at her back, and braced for release.


	14. 14 Intruder

Knives watched the blood fall from his thumb and splatter on the wide leaf of a orchid. With a silent, stoic curiosity, he squeezed another droplet loose and then tugged she skin open to peer inside. The first knuckle of his thumb was almost exposed in the cut, deeper than it should've been. Guess he'd sharpened the shears a bit too well.

He'd end up with marrow-poisoning, like the last time he'd accidentally cut himself so deep, in bone. The shears were left between orchid pots, because he had to disinfect and cover the wound before he could continue pruning.

This he did, and he stepped back into the deep recesses of the garden once more to go about his chores. A little voice cried out, and he stopped, stooped low, and scooped a chatty cat upon his shoulder. Petting it absentmindedly, he wondered what he might have for lunch. Chamber after chamber, he walked the long walk back to the orchids, the cat lost interest and leapt away, time passed, it didn't really matter.

Orchids white, purple, yellow, small, spider-like, dainty, robust, greeted him again. The wind fluttered sheets of frosted plastic, tossing little sand grains against the garden wall. A bee buzzed past him, and he grabbed for his shears.

A tomas approached.

It was faint, at first, like an imagined sound, but it came at him and its steps were quick. His heartbeats outpaced it, until finally it came near, and flew to his left, passing him.

Knives took off in a sprint, chasing the hazy image of a tomas in jog, just yards from the garden wall. It came from the direction Vanessa'd left from, approximately. But there was no cart, and only one tomas, that much he could tell from through the milky plastic walls.

He'd left Vanessa at the complex, with the human, so long ago, and the return she'd mentioned never happened, not when it should have. So, clearly, something happened, something he hadn't expected at first, but she was back.

But it could be the human, something could have gone wrong. Why else would their best cart be abandoned, and one of their strongest toma? Why else should she ride in so hastily? It wasn't good for a tomas to end a trip in a run! She knew that!

The thing outpaced him, though he ran through the garden to the shack, to his only exit out into the desert, in the direction the tomas ran, though he ran as fast as he could. His throat caught, his heart pounded painfully, until he reached the door and burst into the blistering sun.

Squinting as his eyes adjusted, he rushed to where the tomas stopped. It was on the ground, wheezing, and its rider was still crouched forward in racing position. The tomas wasn't his, the bridle wasn't his, and the rough, brown cloth the rider wore about his head and body were completely unfamiliar.

He could be armed!

Knives felt for the shears, he must have shoved them into the loop on the leg of his pants. "This is a knife," he began, raising it up to the back of the man's neck threateningly, pressing its open blades into the wrappings. "Stand, slowly," he growled, applying some pressure to the open shears. His eyes were adjusting gradually. "You will tell me where you came from. Stand up and tell me - where is Vanessa?" he commanded, growing anxious.

The rider didn't move, just remained pitched forward on its exhausted mount.

Anger boiling up, he screamed at the stranger. "Tell me!" he demanded.

With still no response, he thought perhaps this human was unconscious, as his tomas was. He drew the shears away. Lifting his foot slowly, he nudged the stranger's shoulder. No response. He shoved harder, sending the rider to slide off the saddle, into the sand beside the tomas, like a ragdoll.

Knives roared, impatient. If this man had any information about Vanessa, he wanted it immediately. To wait for the man to wake, how infuriating!

But if the man died, of exhaustion, which the tomas he rode in on was bound to do as well, Knives would never know! Running once more to the barn nearby, Knives filled a bucket from the water spout inside.

As he carried it carefully to the rider, his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, and he could see the embroidery detail on the tomas bridle. He saw the raw, ragged hem of the rider's cloak lift in a gust of wind and expose a bare leg, still slung on the saddle. He realized this was Vanessa.

The bucket of water he took to her crumpled form. He dropped to his knees beside her, and unwound the torn cloth from her head. She was pale, gaunt, sweaty and dirty. She breathed hoarsely. Lifting a ladle to her dry lips, he poured water down her throat. She coughed as it poured down, unconscious. The brown cloak fell back to cover her leg as he lifted her limp body from the saddle, the deeply scarred thigh disappearing yet again. Cradling her in his arms, he carried her out of the harsh noon sun.


	15. 15 Smirk

Stop looking at my scars, Kern, Vanessa thought as she awoke, trying to tug her arm away from the warm breath upon it. It wouldn't move much, it was too weak, and she was too tired to try again. The warm, wet breath continued, slow and quiet, as though his face were only inches from her shoulder. She didn't like to have him looking, again, but at least the bed was soft. It felt so soft against her skin. The slave dress wasn't there anymore, she was wearing some sort of big shirt, and her legs were naked against the sheets. Oh my, did she sleep with him to get here, to the main house? She guessed so, but didn't remember. That would've been disgusting, that toad of a man, but at least the bed was soft and she didn't have to wear the cuffs anymore.

The cuffs were gone? Surely not, but yet she couldn't feel them. Maybe she'd gotten used to them, and didn't feel them anymore.

It was getting warm, probably late morning. "I want to sleep in," she whispered. No sound came out, her throat was so dry. The words stuck in the back of her mouth, and she began to cough. She tried to roll on her side, to cough, but the muscles ached so. Coughing hurt so.

She couldn't get back to sleep, she was wide awake. Relenting to wake, she opened her eyes, slowly, wincing at the sting of the crust in her eyelashes, sealing her eyelids shut from sleep. It gave way, and she stared at the ceiling, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Water, she really wanted some water.

Kern's breathing left her shoulder and the pressure on the bed meant he was leaning over her, his hands pressing into the bed by her arm. She glanced over and attempted to see his expression. Did he want her to wake up? Just a few more minutes, she thought to herself, and some water.

He was talking but she wasn't really listening. His whispers were low and serious. She waited for him to get to the point.

His hand went to her face. She pulled away, but it hurt to pull away, and his hand tried again. A callused palm rested on her cheek, turning her head to the side, to face him. He didn't look happy.

Kern must have bleached his hair, and his acne was gone. Good for Kern, but she still didn't want him touching her.

"…please, say something…" he was mumbling, before his voice cracked. He leaned in to kiss her forehead, and as he drew away, a beam of light from the garden door dashed across his face. Knives? How did he get there? Oh, he wouldn't be very happy about Kern!

'Water,' she mouthed, and in a moment water was brought, cool, to her lips, as she was pulled into a sitting position on the bed. Gulping slowly, aching all over, she took it in until it was gone, and she was panting from the effort.

His arms folded around her and he pressed her face into his chest, tight. He smelled like dirt and sweat and Knives. The grip loosened, but he kept holding her for a moment, and she breathed hot air from him. He sat back, next to her, and reached for something. Sweet fruit, he pulled a chunk of flesh from it with his fingers, making a wet, sucking sound. It came to her mouth and she weakly let it in, to dissolve on her tongue and to swallow without chewing. More morsels came, sweet, reviving her more and more, until it was through and she could eat no more.

He was offering her other food, more water, medicine, any sort of help, "…and if you want a cat, I can find you one," but she merely smiled, feebly, and shook her head 'no' very slowly.

She didn't have to sleep with Kern, and she didn't have the cuffs on, and she wasn't a slave, and she was feeling much better, thanks, so there was no need for him to do anything else. He could go back to working in the garden if he wanted to, she thought to mention, and she would join him as soon as her legs stopped aching. Words didn't come out, because they just couldn't; she just stared at him, with a little smirk.


	16. 16 Secret

Knives went to fetch some more melon, in case she wanted more, but he rushed back as though she might disappear or fall unconscious again, before his return. Breathless, he settled two, ripe melons on the floor beside the bed, and seated himself back onto the stool beside her. He'd been sitting there almost nonstop, waiting for her, for two days since she'd shown up.

She kept staring at him, but she looked content. Her body was still suffering from exhaustion and dehydration, she wasn't speaking, and her eyes opened only a little. But she was alive, and would recover, with no major injuries. Knowing that, there was nothing he would ask her.

The strange tomas she'd rode in on had been run to death. Its stench reached the shack within hours of her return. Knives had had to bury it hastily, but he'd stripped it of its bridle, saddle, and baggage, first. He'd also stripped Vanessa of the coarse cloth he found her in, before washing her and tucking her in to rest. As she lay there, he had carefully filed through the cuffs on her ankles and wrists.

The foreign items, of toma leather, woven roots, and cattle bladders, proved that there were more humans out there.

The cuffs he'd seen before, so long ago. Cuffs like that, he knew, used to be common in slave trade. He'd had to take several breaks from filing the cuffs to step out into the desert and scream in anger and disgust. Since she awoke for the first time, his anger had dissipated.

And though she could say very little, she kept mouthing to him, "Please don't be angry." He smiled when she said it, reassuring.

There were things she would tell him, important things, in time. In the meantime, she was safe, and he felt he was as well. There would be time for questions, later. She ought not be rushed.

He couldn't let his eyes leave her, as he sat there, holding her hand tight without realizing it. His own, tired eyes were weary from tears, from worry.

Knives sat there, as the day grew hot, giving her water on the hour, twice helping her out to the near trees in the garden to go to the bathroom. She was regaining some strength, but her legs could not support her yet, and when she bent her knees, her legs quaked. Still, she wanted him to turn away when she did her business, smiling as she whispered hoarsely that she would be fine.

After the second trip out, Vanessa asked to stay in the garden. It was so hot in the shack. He agreed, and propped her against the trunk of a maple. They sat in a tranquil silence. Neither spoke, even as they went to the shack at night to sleep.

O

O

The following morning, Knives opened his eyes, he found Vanessa was staring at him, turned on her side to face him. Startled for a moment, he asked if she needed anything.

"I'm feeling much better," she replied in a whisper, still rather hoarse. "How long as it been since you tended to the plants?"

"Don't worry about them, they can grow without my help. I'll get you breakfast." He sat up, yawning.

"Not those plants, the angel plants."

He scratched his scruffy chin, turning to her. "I've kept them all on schedule, except-" Abruptly, he grew quiet. "I really need to check on Callisto."

Callisto! She'd nearly forgotten! She sat up as well, arms shaking. "Let's go to her, then."

"You're staying here."

"Don't worry about me," she assured, standing. "I'll get showered, we can leave in an hour at most."

"Oh, yes, let's take you far out to one of the most distant complexes on the planet, because you're in perfect traveling condition," he scoffed, still seated. "Besides, what if humans are…" Trailing off, he became suddenly stern. "Would you be unsafe here, alone?"

She paused, leaning against the wall for support. "The garden's safe. The complexes…they're safe, too. You've never seen evidence of a human, for this whole time…Don't expect to, ever again." She ran her dirty toes along the weave of the floor mats, avoiding his gaze. "I'd just…prefer…to stay…I want to go with you, please."

"So they…" He stopped himself. No, not until she wanted to talk about it, he reminded himself. Vanessa was clever, she wouldn't let harm come to the garden, or the plant angels. She'd told him all he needed to know. Somehow, he knew it. "Go and shower, then. Yell if you need any help."

"Thank you."


	17. 17 Children

The glow of the massive bulb dulled, slowly, but still it flickered. Small, thin Callisto curled suspended from the core, wings so much smaller, so bare. The feather pile in her bulb was so high and thick. The bones of her shoulders, hips, they all stuck out in a sickly manner.

"What did you do, turn her output down like a dimmer?" Vanessa asked, squinting up at the prone girl. She was leaning her weight against the catwalk railing, but still her legs trembled.

"Sit down, Vanessa, you're still too weak," Knives murmured, fingers still tapping away at the panel before him.

"Will she heal, with the output lowered like that?"

"It's called hibernation, it works with the others. I'm hoping it'll work for her, but she isn't a full-breed so it's hard to say. Her condition's worsened. Vanessa, you look like you're going to collapse," he insisted, stopping his work to address her. "Rest for a moment, we've only just arrived."

"If I rest it'll only get worse," she stated plainly. "What does the flickering mean?"

"I've never seen them flicker before, and yes, you need to rest to get better."

Turning to face him, she shook her head. "This isn't from exhaustion," she informed him, realizing he didn't know. "This is because of the rest, itself. If I don't use my legs, they can't be used."

"It takes weeks for atrophy to set in, doesn't it? You have nothing to-"

"That's if your legs are intact," she corrected, suddenly flushing and turning back to stare into the bulb. "I lost a lot of the muscle in my thighs, back on Earth. In an accident. The explosives weren't supposed to be there."

"Explo-"

"Long story short, I went into a battle too quickly, and my legs were blown off. But they're reattached; they work. I just don't have much muscle, to work with, there, anymore. Didn't you see it, when you…"

He continued to stare at her, letting it sink in, heart pounding. This was a story he had half-expected, after seeing her scars, her legs, her thighs only recently. The scarring told the tale, for the most part. The limp, the scarring, the missing flesh…of course it was the fault of humans. "In this battle, who was the aggressor?" he asked simply.

Was she smiling? "I was."

How could that be true?

"I chose to become a warrior. Willingly. It was my idea. I wanted to go into those battles. I believed in them, still do. And I always won," she added, voice solemn as her smile faded.

"I wouldn't call that winning," Knives commented, confused. "Having your legs…what, 'blown off'?"

She chuckled, but there was sadness in her voice. "You should've seen the other guys," she whispered.

They stood in silence, Vanessa's legs shaking harder. Finally she walked away, footsteps ringing off the catwalk stairs, and tucked herself into a sleeping bag.

Knives knew he should feel anger, hatred for the humans' violence toward Vanessa, toward any plant. And he did, he was angry. But not entirely – he was also stunned by her comments, confused, attempting to figure out how this Vanessa could ever be a 'warrior,' and he felt awe, as when he thought of her beating up the human in the desert, and her punching himself in the face. Awe – that this Vanessa knew more about violence and conflict and sweeping battle than he'd given her credit for. And, unlike him, she'd won her battles.

O

O

Weeks passed, and Vanessa's legs regained stability. She worked harder than ever with him in the gardens, learning construction. They built several extensions onto the garden, and another barn, with scraps from city ruins and plant complexes.

Vanessa's skin tanned in the sun, and her figure changed with work. She was muscular, a little too thin. Toned and strong, she doubled their productivity.

Their relationship was growing stronger than ever. She wanted to be with him all the time, as did he with her. Often, they were together working in silence, but it was good. Sometimes she sang, gradually less insecure about how she sounded.

But night was best. Knives lay there with her, in the plutonic nature that it'd always been, and she spoke with him. They talked about what yields in the garden were their favorites, about funny things they saw the cats doing, and Knives told stories of what he'd being doing for those decades alone.

Once, as they lay there, he wondered aloud, "I don't think I raised Callisto correctly…What did you do, with Tessla?"

Vanessa didn't reply.

"When I found her in the bulb, I kept wondering, what did I do wrong? What should I have said, done, when she was little? I believe I made some mistake with her. Maybe…maybe she needed a mother. Someone like you."

"I don't want to talk about this," she snapped.

Knives was shocked. "I'm not a perv-"

"It's not something I like to think about…it's a sensitive topic for me."

He was quiet, thinking. It would be nice to hear something of her past century, but she seemed so unwilling to divulge information more detailed than, 'I was a warrior, Vash and Tessla are ok, I always won, I wasn't forced into anything.' What sort of 'anything?' he wondered.

"Another topic, then. How did you become a warrior?"

"I decided not to hide anymore," she replied, simply. "On those ships, I told them I'm a plant."

Knives' eyes went wide, in the dark.

"I thought they'd kill me. Instead, they asked me what I wanted to do with myself. I didn't know. I thought about it, I found out all about mankind and the issues of the planet. As on Gunsmoke, there was a darkness in humans. Unlike here, most people on Earth lived lives of relative safety and comfort. When allowed proper means of survival, humans are good. Most humans are good. A very, very small percentage of them, however, turn to the darkness. Despite all logic, they want to cause chaos, to believe in something terrible and violent, or to just get more. They were usually the ones who struggled to survive at some point. I researched all I could about the bad elements in society, and the psychology of the average and the abnormal human mind.

"I asked them if they would help me resurrect my gate. If they could, I told them that I wanted to be a warrior. To use my 'natural talent,' they called it, to go out on missions around the globe, as an independent military figurehead, eliminating the majority of military casualties, keeping peace…On the one condition that I have sole right to choose or refuse any mission. They agreed, on the condition that I never reveal my identity, go into hiding, and I was fine with that. I can honestly say that I don't regret a single mission. Wars and corruption were reduced considerably in the time I served. I made a few mistakes, but the accident was the worst. I'd just started seeing black hairs, and since that day I've had strands, at the base of my neck. I didn't want to do it anymore. quit, after that."

Vanessa had a functioning gate? The humans knew she was a plant? She policed them as a plant, killing off the worst of the vermin? "On these missions, you'd do what?"

"I'd, well, usually I'd sneak up to the enemy's base, to where their leader was, they always had a leader, and my support announced my presence. That usually did it."

"What, taking out the leader? It would have been easier if they hadn't announced that you were there, if you could simply diffuse the situation without a word."

"Knives, I don't believe in slaughter. We found something more clever to fight them with – fear. I had a reputation, made demonstrations for the whole world to witness. Take out a chunk of unpopulated landscape in front of the media, once in a while, and there was no need for anyone to die. Once faced with their own mortality, most surrendered on the spot, not a drop of blood spilt."

"Well played," Knives reflected, "So with threat of death, you were able to frighten them into submission. Most of the time. What about the rest of the missions?"

"Sometimes people had to die."

He was somewhat amazed. Vanessa, killing humans, despite the finite philosophy his brother had pushed upon her. Vash wanted Love and Peace. Vanessa's mantra sounded more like Fear and Peace.

"Their deaths are on my head. I couldn't figure out how to reach them. When I rushed out too quickly, that day in Africa…I could've avoided it if I'd waited for the sweep crew to check the area, but I was impatient…If I'd known about the mines, I wouldn't have gotten hurt, and I wouldn't have…gone berserk... I killed…I killed so many, I killed all of them…It was an accident…" Her voice was so weak, so quiet, so hushed and reverent. "I made my peace, I healed, I prepared everything for the project to continue without me, and I came here."

He listened to her quick, sharp breathing, without a word. He wasn't sure what he thought of this, whether he agreed or not with her choices. It was more than she'd told him, about her, than at any other time in his life.

"I, um, I made a mistake, with Vince, with that human I found. I didn't know the whole situation. Just like every other one, he made unjust decisions for the sake of survival, and I wasn't careful. I'm sorry. I didn't tie him to the rock. I lost control of the situation, I let my curiosity take over…I let it go too far. I thought I could do it, it was such a nice plan. But I was tired, and cranky, and I was so angry, and I didn't know that would change it, I'd never been angry when I used the weapon before, but it doesn't work the same when you're-" Her throat caught on her words, as they became louder and faster and wavering. "I didn't want to kill anyone, ever again, but I…they're both dead, both of them, I think, but I was so desperate, I was trying to survive and my darkness took over, just like them," she continued, almost yelling, "I don't want anyone else to die, anyone, and I won't tell you where they are, I can't, I'm sorry!"

Knives sank into thought, not replying.

"If there's ever a good reason for you to know, I'll tell you in a heartbeat, but until then…it has to be my secret," she insisted, in a tone more pleading than commanding.

He traced the silhouette of her, as she lay there beside him, curled up under a ratty quilt. Her eyes were shut, her brows tight, chin tucked in a fold. Sliding his hand under the sheets, he found hers balled into fists under her chin. His fingers tucked into the palm of her fist until it loosened, and he held it there.

Silence passed, and Knives felt himself nodding off, until her voice came, muffled. "Say something."

"About what?"

"Don't you want to know? Or do I have to wait and see what plans that mind of yours is hatching?" she grumbled.

"You're ruining the moment, Vanessa," Knives chuckled, closing his eyes once more. Sliding his fingers just a bit more past hers, he smiled.

Nothing more was said that night. Vanessa was so confused, and quite shocked. As she drifted away, she dare not to move her hands.


	18. 18 Clean

Brandishing the shears he used for pruning and haircuts, Knives felt about his head. He sat in the soft grass of the third chamber, trimming his hair, wondering why she was watching.

Vanessa's eyes were trained on his head as he cut, stoic. How to break the silence?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a fluffy feline approach.

"Close your eyes."

She hesitated, but did so, holding her hands over her eyes as the sounds of snipping continued.

"Okay…look," he told her, placing the styled cat before her. He'd poodle-cut its fur, but it was purring good-naturedly from the attention.

"That's so mean!" she cried, but she broke into a laugh in spite of herself.

Ah, it was so good to hear her laugh. To…really…laugh. He breathed in, deeply; the air tasted sweet.

He finished up his own cut, cropping it short as usual. "It'll grow back."

"In the meantime, his friends will tease him." She sat back on the grass beside him, watching him clean up the hairline.

"Good enough," Knives said, setting the shears aside and blowing hairs out of his nose. "I need a shower."

Vanessa sat there, playing with her thumb.

Knives walked off towards the next chamber, where they showered in the privacy of a wooded grotto.

He could hear her, walking slowly, a ways behind him.

At the grotto, Knives slipped between the close-quartered branches. Still, he heard her footsteps through the trees.

He was already barefoot, in patched jeans after removing the hair-spotted shirt. He hung his shirt on a branch and went to the chain to pull the water reserve loose.

A cat ran out from the trees and skitted off to some dry place.

Some little branch broke, at chest height, and he knew she was there.

"If you want to shower first, just say so, I won't mind," he called out.

The rustling came closer, until she was in the clearing beside him, with eyes downcast. "I want to shower" she mumbled, "…with you…?"

Looking down on himself, he wasn't so sure he wanted her to.

Embarrassed, he cleared his throat. "I'll be done in a second, really."

"I won't look" she insisted, taking off her own clothing behind him.

Turning away from her, he was shocked. Why? "I won't look, either," he replied, as casually as he could. Just keep it cool, Knives, he thought to himself. He disrobed completely and began to shake his clothes clean under the 'rain.'

Rubbing the water over his skin to clean, he kept his eyes trained on a tree branch. What a weird shaped leaf.

He crouched down to rub the sand from his ankles, but felt her brush against him in the motion.

But hadn't she been quite a bit further from him than that?

He finished with his ankles, but his hands felt sort of cold and numb. When he stood back up, the blood left his head for a moment and he almost felt he might fall. Part of him wanted this shower to last forever, to get more interesting, but the other, northerly part wanted the shower to be over soon.

Arms wrapped around his chest from behind. He felt her press into his back.

What to say, what to do…did everything just go black, or white? Please don't look…

"Can I look at you?" she whispered carefully.

Oh, does she know where this is headed? he wondered. What cruel joke…

Her arms came down and she moved away from him a bit. "Do you want to look at me, first?"

"Sure." That wasn't the right word. His head was spinning.

"Ok, then," she muttered.

Knives turned so slowly that he wondered if Gunsmoke was turning against him. It's just a body, he told himself, nudity is natural, nothing out of the ordinary, just nudity. His eyes were open, he was looking.

He saw the thighs, the flesh missing in deep valleys on each leg.

Her eyes were shut tight, arms at her sides, but tensed.

Her legs had been blown off. He'd seen the gore of death, but she was alive and the bloody stumps she once had were now reattached. Reattached, with flesh missing. When he'd first seen these thighs, she was unconscious, and he was disgusted. He'd averted his eyes and covered her, repelled by them. It must have hurt terribly.

He remembered having pieces of himself blown off in the past, flesh blown away by his dear brother…the pain drove him near madness…But he'd engineered new flesh for himself, he wasn't left scarred. None of him was missing.

What did she want…?

"It doesn't anger me anymore," he offered, quietly.

The water was coming down thin, it was almost finished. The shower was over. Lucky thing, he thought, reminded once more of himself.

He just wanted to get dressed before she saw…

What did she expect, anyway? What was her point, if she had one?

She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped.

"I'm still attracted to your body," he blurted out.

He thought he meant that reassuringly, but it didn't come out like that. Those eyes, maybe if he could look into her eyes she would get his meaning.

Her eyes were open.

The water was gone.

Her gaze rose meet his. He was just about to say something when he forgot what. Because she had been looking down.

She glanced down for a moment and then up, her mouth closed, but breathing fast through her nose.

She'd looked down.

Wonderful.

Turning abruptly, he stepped fast through the trees, wanting to get away. The branches scratched at him, he was moving too fast, not very careful, and then he was out. He breathed in the air that was humid as ever, walking swiftly towards the shack.

She was following him, probably staring at him.

At least it was the back of him.


	19. 19 Touch

What did she expect? He was male, she was female, she knew he wanted her, all those years ago, didn't she know he would react to her…like that?

That she stood, sat, laid near him, that he could not touch her – that was difficult enough. But to tease him so cruelly! His pulse thundered in his ears, his throat. Body tensed, breath whistled between gritted teeth. He made it to the cover of the shack and hastily pulled jeans on.

She swung open the door and stepped inside. He was fastening his pants and held a towel out without looking. She took it and covered herself; he caught another glimpse of her body as she did and ground his teeth together, turning to face the wall. His heart pounded fast.

"What did you want me to say?" he asked. What she wanted…because somehow he didn't think his opinions were particularly important to her, surely they never really were. It made him so hollow.

She didn't respond. But she was laughing, softly, he was sure.

He turned to the sound; she was sitting on the bed with the towel wrapped about her. Her knees were drawn to her chin, towel not hiding everything, her face buried in her hair and knees. Her shoulders quivered slightly with her quiet laughter.

She was laughing? Was she insane? Or this was a joke? Did he miss a punch line? Was HE the punch line?

"You think this is…" his face was getting hot. He turned to punch the door frame. "What the # do you want from me, Vanessa? Why do you have to make this so difficult? I've gone two centuries…There's only so much one can…Aaaah!"

He punched the doorframe again, harder, groaned in frustration again, and sunk down the wall to sit.

"Humiliating," he muttered. "Intolerable."

She was quiet, still.

Blood pooled up where he'd split his knuckles on the wall. He pressed his lips to the blood and the metal taste filled his mouth. The tide of anger pulled back. "Please don't pull stunts like that again."

She pulled her arms from around her knees and set her legs down, into a more modest position.

Her hand went to her forehead, her head still down, tangles of wet hair about her crown.

"Now, I'm going to check on the fields," he stood, and searched for a shirt. "I need to be alone for a while."

Blood smeared on the sleeve as he pulled it on. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to frighten you. I get angry, but I would never hurt you."

The laughing sound started again.

"Stop it!" he yelled.

Her head snapped up at the sound. Her face was a tear-stained mess. That 'laughing' sound was crying.

He knelt down on the floor before her. "I thought you were laughing at me." Should he leave?

It hurt inside. Please don't look like that…He didn't knew she could cry anymore…

Vanessa breathed deeply, slowly.

He waited. She was calming herself down to speak.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, eyebrows drawn together.

Knives felt a wave of relief. "You're forgiven. I just don't get what you were trying to-"

"I think I'm attracted to you, too," she blurted, eyes shut.

There was a pause.

"How confusing that must be for you, here you are, and here I am, and there's no one else."

"But-" she breathed out weakly.

Knives continued, interrupting her. "Body conflicting with the mind. Story of my life; the past 100 years of it, anyway."

She sniffed and swallowed. Pulling her legs closer, she glanced about the room lazily, taking in the various items. "I painted you on my wall. You were always in my dreams. I didn't expect you to change much. I didn't have a plan, I didn't know what you'd do – I expected you to kill me or something."

Knives pressed his fingers to his temples. How many times did he have to say it…

"I kept thinking I should've been nicer to you. You were a murderer, but maybe it was never my place to judge. Punishment and penance are two different things; being away for so long…"

She was smiling slightly. "You've changed; you were thinner, paler, your hands were softer. They're rough now. And you have scars-"

"Like him?"

Vanessa fell silent.

"If I must be second place, won't you stop reminding me?"

"You're not! In Vash, I made a mistake. I wanted, just once, to feel safe. I was afraid of you, you wanted to use me, I had to stay away, but I just couldn't wait anymore, I kind of built it up in my head, what would happen when I got here, which it would be, and you…I don't know which Knives I'm in love with, but I want to think it's 'new Knives,' because that'd be so much easier and far less confusing than-"

"…Love?" he repeated, eyes shifting back and forth as though reading the air between them.

A confession burst from her. "I slept with him, we had Tessla, and it saved everybody, and I thought I loved Vash, maybe I used to, I just really wanted to be like him, but I couldn't, I couldn't be his wife anymore than I could be Tessla's mother, I just couldn't, it didn't work, and I kept painting you and dreaming you, and I hate that word, 'love,' what the hell does that mean, I just knew I wanted to see you again and when I did I felt so much better and you've been kind and understanding, mostly, and patient, I deserve worse, I know, I'm probably insane or something, I'm sorry, I couldn't figure out what I wanted…"

He knew he was pale. "So you think you love me?" That's a new one.

"Basically."

They sat there, wondering what would happen next.

He wasn't sure what that meant. He tried to piece it together from the literature he'd been reading to the plants, but it came to mind as nonsense, since that's what he thought of that stuff. "So…what does that…mean…?" he attempted, cautiously.

Peering up at him with that one oceanic eye and the other milky eye, face marred with lined scars, Vanessa didn't reply. She stared at him, silent, then shrugged.

So she's as confused as me, he thought, leaning in to kiss her forehead.

As he leaned away, she ducked forward and kissed him on the lips. It felt different than before. A century ago, she was pretending she wanted to kiss him. This didn't FEEL like pretending, not anymore.

She wrapped her arms around him and he followed suit. They kissed more, softly at first, but then suddenly feverish. They fell back onto the sheets. Her towel fell away.

When she began to fumble with the buttons on his pants, Knives panicked - he couldn't think straight enough to process what was going on. This was very strange, unfamiliar. Maybe his blood was boiling, maybe he was devolving into an animal. He was losing control of the situation, of himself. There was no stopping it.

She stopped kissing him and drew away. Their eyes met. Her face was red. The way her hands rested on his arms, the way she was looking at him with her eye so black, somehow he knew exactly what was going to happen.

He found himself in what he felt was the correct position and she didn't say a word.

Metal tore aside as a booming sound thundered through the walls of the shack. Knives toppled to the floor and pulled Vanessa with him as he swung to see the gaping hole in the wall.

A second blast rang out, and the roof was gone.

"Anybody alive in there?" a gruff voice shouted.


	20. 20 Blood

Vanessa reached under the bed for a laser gun and clicked it onto high.

"See, there's all manner of greenery. Right where I said it was, like I ever forgot where something was," a girl happily shouted, her voice was closer to the man's.

"Back, River," the man growled. "Come out with your hands up and we won't kill you," he shouted again.

Vanessa craned to see through the new hole, and glanced at Knives.

She gasped, and dove back under the bed for a first aid kit.

Knives was leaning against the wall with his left shoulder, because his right shoulder and back were bleeding. He'd been able to shield her from the debris of the first blast, his body over hers. Flesh was missing from the wounds, and there was…a lot of blood. It was pooling on the ground, already.

"We've got a hundred men riding in, twenty days from today. They ain't all as civilized as I am, you see. Surrender and I'll take you into my household. Otherwise, you're going to end up dead or worse. I can vouch for your safety if you just give up peacefully now, whoever you all are."

Vanessa pressed black clotting plastic into Knives' shoulder wound, her eyes tearing up.

"No one followed you?" Knives whispered.

"Definitely, no one – they had to have found us some other way…" With a larger strip of the plastic, she sealed off the gaping back wound. The plastics were leaking a little, they were too dry, he was losing blood.

Knives was peering over the edge of the bed. "That girl, a scout I think. And we didn't-"

"Knives, focus," Vanessa whispered hurriedly. "Explosives. Guys with guns. Hundred armed men." And bleeding I can't stop, she thought, biting her lip.

The man outside raised his shotgun again and bellowed for attention. "Try something, and I'll wipe you out, right now. Even if you manage to kill all of us here now, those to come will risk anything to get your green stuff here, just like I will. You don't beat that determination. So just give up. You ain't done nothing wrong. I don't wanna see you dead."

Knives drew his mouth tight and frowned, serious. Turning to Vanessa, he wordlessly lifted his left forearm and made a fist.

She shook her head. "Be reasonable, like he's trying to," she insisted, holding the plastic tight to his shoulder with one hand, reaching for the laser gun with the other.

Seemingly oblivious to the pain, Knives was incredulous, "You know how to use those, too?"

But they could hear the man walking closer. "Say something, or I will fire in 3…2…1.."

"Don't shoot," Vanessa yelled, still crouched and hidden. "Why aren't you waiting for the hundred men, why are you storming the place on your own?" she shouted.

The man laughed.

"You here to claim ownership?" she yelled.

Knives took over the wound compression with his free hand, allowing Vanessa the chance to grab clothing.

"I ain't crazy, woman. Hundred men ain't gonna care who got where first."

The girl laughed, near his side. "Ma'am, we just came early to keep whoever been livin here from getting killed next week."

"Yeah, so you just come out nice-like," the man offered.

Vanessa laughed aloud. "So you came, blowing holes where I sleep, to save me? Oh, my knight in shining armor!" She held tight to the worst wound, on Knives' shoulder, pressing it. They were sitting, naked, in a little puddle of blood, surrounded by pieces of the wall and roof.

"Charitable don't mean suicidal, hon. Even the prettiest ladies pack heat." He sounded impatient.

"You as pretty and dangerous as you sound?"

"What if I am? And slavery is not charity, slimebag," she sneered, before clumsily pulling a T-shirt over her head.

"Listen, you bitch, I'm giving you to the count of ten to get your ass up here and in my custody, or I'm blowin you up. Blowed up ladies can come in handy for some things, too. Either way, I'll make sure you're well nourished and taken care of."

"How many are there, two?" she whispered.

"Three; him, the girl, and a third young man with…explosives, I think," Knives murmured, face pale.

"Come on out! Ten. Nine."

"A gentleman would give a lady more time that that!"

"Eight."

"To pack and-"

"Seven. You won't be packin, miss. Six."

They heard him step closer again; he would be able to hear them.

"Five."

Vanessa whispered something to Knives, and he nodded.

"Four."

Knives whispered into her ear, and she responded the same.

"Three."

They swept the metal shards away from the floor about them.

"Two."

Vanessa leaned onto the floor, flat on her side, peeking around the foot of the bed, the pistol raised just so…

"One."

Two perfectly sliced chunks of shotgun fell to the ground. "What the f#&," the man mumbled, letting the last piece fall from his shoulder.

"Sir?" the young man called

The young girl fell, she cried out. "My arms!"

"God damn it, Simon, do it!" the man yelled

Simon rode a few yards closer on his toma and hurled several cloth-stuffed bottles in succession into the shack. But they didn't make it.

One exploded in the air between Simon and his target, and the others landed in halves on the ground, fizzling and popping in the sand.

Simon was knocked from his toma by a blast to his shoulder and fell unconscious.

The older man was beet red, and he drew twin guns from his holster, advancing on the shack, firing wild shots.

Knives' blades drew out, slowly; he was growing tired. He used them to deflect a few bullets from these guns and promptly sliced the barrels into bits.

The man cried out plaintively and fell to the ground beside his carved firearms.

Vanessa rushed to check him. "He's having a heart attack! Your knives, he-" She could save the man, she could defibrillate him, maybe remove his artery plaque…

Thud.

A garbled cry stuck in her throat. Rushing to pull Knives' face from the bloodied floor mats, she found him very pale. The plastic at his shoulder was gushing, the red puddle grew. Hastily, she pulled him off of the blood, into the light, grabbing for things to stop the bleeding.


	21. 21 Dirt

Vanessa stood to wipe sweat and sand from her brow, then discarded the shovel and climbed out of the hole to retrieve the dead man's body.

"Knives!" she exclaimed, stuck in place before running to the shack door.

He was standing there, leaning against the doorframe that was still intact. "Where are they?" he asked, calm despite the nagging pain and blood loss. His angel arm blades were retracted a mere few inches from his left forearm, slicing into the wall beside him.

"Lie back down, you'll rip out your stitches! You lost a lot of blood; you're going to-"

Just as he lost his balance and began to pass out, she rushed to catch him. Easing him into the sand, Vanessa frowned. "Your blood pressure's low, so you're going to lose consciousness if you exert yourself. You're cold, your heart's racing, you might tear open the wounds and start bleeding again…" Helping him to his feet so that she could walk him back to the shack, she sighed. "Stay in bed. I'm taking care of things. Everything's fine."

He was lowered onto his uninjured, left side. "Where are you hurt," he asked, eyes closed as he winced from the pain.

"I'm not. I'll be back in an hour, ok?"

"Tie them to something, this time."

"I already did. Stay still, ok?" she asked, kissing his clammy, bloodied forehead.

He nodded.

O

O

Normally, waking to breakfast in bed would be a pleasant thing. But, that morning, the throbbing pain in his shoulder and back sickened him to the point of nearly vomiting as Vanessa presented fruit for him to down.

"Eat it, for me?" she asked, smiling feebly as she offered a slice of orange.

Chewing slowly and swallowing too early, he managed to take in an orange, a handful of grapes, and half a melon. He glanced about, surveying the shack's damage, the light peering through the tarps she'd put up over the missing wall and roof.

Vanessa peeled a pole of sugar cane and left it beside him in bed, asking him to "Chew on it, please." The more sugar, the faster he could recover the blood he'd spilt.

Knives asked for a status report on the intruders. He didn't seem very angry, just deeply concerned.

"The big guy died," she began, offering water while wiping blood and sweat from him. "He saw your arm extended and he had a heart attack."

"You couldn't save him?" Knives asked, handing back the canteen.

What a strange way for him to word that, she wondered, massaging grime from his cheek with a washcloth. "I didn't try."

Knives closed his eyelids to let her wash around his eyes, not saying a word. She moved to his neck and he stared back at her, eyes piercing and blue.

"I…He would've probably died anyway," she continued. "The other two are stable, secured in the eastern shed. I need to bring them something to eat, drink, soon."

"Go on," he pressed, gently. There was a hint of sadness in his tone.

"I want to finish this first." She drew back the sheets to wipe his legs clean quickly, and helped him into some comfortable pants. He lay as still as he could, clearly in pain.

Finally, he spoke, chuckling softly. "I was trying not to kill them." He knew how pathetic it sounded.

"You did well, at that. We make a great team," she added, smiling.

His face was serious, somber.

Finishing by changing his bandages, Vanessa wondered if he was feeling remorse for the death. "Shock killed him, his body killed him – his lifestyle, his cholesterol, his heart, that's what killed him. It wasn't your fault."

"I know."

"Now, off to the prisoners," she announced, kneeling beside him. Kissing him softly on the cheek, then the mouth, she rested her forehead against his. "Yesterday was a pretty crappy day for you, huh?"

Grinning, he kissed her again. "Not entirely."


	22. 22 Caged

On the second day, Knives accompanied Vanessa to the humans, watching her feed and water them. The young man was quiet, stoic, but the girl cursed and gnashed at her captors whenever they came near.

Lifting a carrot, half-eaten, to the girl's lips again, Vanessa waited for her next bite. The girl lunged forward, just an inch being all she could move, snapping at Vanessa's fingers around the carrot.

Instinctively, Vanessa pulled away in time. She backhanded the girl, knocking her out. "Dammit, stop trying to bite me," she murmured, shaking her head. Standing, she walked to the young man, and offered a fresh carrot. "Good afternoon, Simon."

"Good afternoon, Vanessa, thank you," he politely responded, munching on his meal without incident.

"This is Simon, Knives, and the girl's River, his sister. He told me she has an aggression problem."

Knives grunted, and sat down beside Vanessa, a bit further from the human tied to the pole.

"Can you hold the canteen for him, so I can check his wound?" she asked Knives, expecting him to decline.

Wordlessly, he moved to the task, carefully lifting the water to Simon's lips, watching for the hint that he was through.

"Looks good, no sign of infection. You'll be good as new in no time," she told him, changing the bandage on his shoulder before standing to leave.

"Thank you," Simon mumbled, watching them leave and lock the door behind them.

"I need to go to Callisto," Knives announced, leaning against Vanessa for support, as they walked back into the garden. "If I leave tonight, I should be back in time."

Vanessa contemplated the situation. She'd worried about Callisto's condition as well, wishing they'd been back to see her before the attack! "Now is not the best time."

He agreed. "But if we wait until after our hundred-man incident happens, she could be dead. I make good time with the little cart; I'll be back a few days before they're supposed to arrive."

"And I can't go, without you, because I wouldn't know what to do," she thought aloud. "Do you think you have the strength for it?"

Nodding, Knives stared off, distant. "I'll be back before they get here. But if I'm not, you have your weapon." Reaching for the nearest tree, in the first chamber, Knives stood on his own.

She frowned, standing before him, arms crossed. "That I do. I'll defend the garden with all I have."

"Don't. All of this – it's replaceable. If things get ugly, run away. Hide in the Glaston complex; they won't find it. Just…Don't die. Please," he added, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat. "Given time to think, one of us is bound to come up with a good plan. One we can both live with."

Smirking, she nodded. "Well then, I've gone to the liberty of packing the cart; I'd anticipated this might happen. Everything's set."

"Good, I can leave immediately."

"Yeah, you could. Wait, an hour more, please? I mean, if you want to, if you feel alright to, we could…" She paused, tracing a circle in the grass with the toe of her boot. "We can…"

Knives understood, seeing her blush, reading the tone in her voice. Oh, how he wanted to say yes… Taking her hand, he squeezed. "When this is all over. When we can breath easy, enjoy it."

Vanessa took a deep breath, nodding.

O

O

She couldn't stand to see them tied up like that, all the time. It was humiliating, River said. Vanessa knew it was true.

After completing the structure of the shed, reinforcing it, she began work on a cage within. The cage would consist of three chain-link sheets, boxing in the area just inside the main door. There was a small door along the bottom of the fencing and the cement floor, just large enough to allow passage of a large bucket. Thus, provisions, water, supplies, and a latrine bucket could be passed through regularly. At the side of the shed door, there was also a chain-link door, so that she could enter the area with the siblings, if need be. Everything was bolted and screwed in such that Vanessa had great confidence that no unarmed humans, nor even a level four sandstorm, could breach it.

Simon and River were blindfolded during the construction around them, for those few days, and when their eyes were freed, so were the rest of them. They felt their ropes loosen suddenly, then a light metal clink.

"Do anything to make me want to tie you up again, and that's what I'll do," Vanessa announced to them, from the 'safety' of the little cage within. "I don't want to keep you here any longer than you've got to be here, but while you're under my care I'd rather you not live like animals."

River finished tugging off her bonds and ran to the pile of things she saw near her.

"I've given you some things to make you more comfortable. Please behave," she asked, turning to leave.

"Vanessa, ma'am!" Simon called, standing. He stepped towards her, resting his fingers in the loops in the fencing.

She steadied her grip on the laser gun at her hip.

"Thank you," he said, breathlessly, smiling.

Looking away, Vanessa exited the shed and bolted the door behind her. She sighed, heart beating so fast.


	23. 23 Callisto

Startled awake by shouts outside, Vanessa leapt from bed and rushed out the door barefoot. It was the dead of night and Knives was riding in, yelling, "Help me with her!"

Noting the shock she registered when she saw in the cart, Knives and she gripped the handles on the sides of the gurney and lifted Callisto to rush her inside.

"The garden!" he instructed. They dropped Callisto's groaning form gingerly upon the soft grasses. Vanessa ran for her med supplies, Knives for candles. The examination began.

Striking matches and lighting every little candle he could find, Knives set them around Callisto, waiting for Vanessa to offer wisdom. He winced when a needle dove into Callisto's core.

She deposited a bit of the material in the syringe onto a little round bit of new technology. It whirred to life and a magnified projection of the sample filled the air above the device.

"Cancer."

"Cancer?" he repeated, staring at the projection.

"What'd you think it was?" she asked, pulling out a dose of tranquillizer.

"I…I had no clue," he admitted, honestly. Catching his breath, he went for blankets.

Vanessa ran her fingers along the surface of Callisto's core, past little cherub legs and feathers. She was lying on her belly on the gurney, the core mass protruding a full 2 feet out from between her shoulder blades. Evidently her core was in the same area as Vanessa's. Breathing deeply and occasionally emitting a little groan, Callisto was evidently unaware of her surroundings. Her eyes were shut tight and watering, face buried down into the gurney fabric.

Knives had fashioned a makeshift blindfold around Callisto's eyes. They were probably as unused to white light as her own had been, when she'd been extracted from the bulb as a child.

Knives returned with blankets and began wrapping Callisto's nude, thin body, and cushioned her head.

Vanessa assisted. "She's stable. I'll operate come sunrise."

"Will she…"

"It's contained in the mass here. Unless it's spread further, she has a good chance. Either way, she's losing the mass, and inevitably, part of her core." She spoke from experience. "She won't be able to return to the bulb after this."

Knives nodded. "But she'll live."

"It's her choice, not ours," she corrected, hugging him. "I'm glad you're back."

He stood stoic, glancing over her shoulder at the shivering mass he'd brought.

O

O

Nudged awake, Vanessa lifted her head from the grass she'd been sleeping upon and let her eyes adjust to morning's first light. Knives was sitting beside her, poking her with an impatience that was almost childlike. He nodded at Callisto, who seemed to be waking up.

Moving towards her moaning form, Vanessa leaned in close. "If we don't remove your plant mass you're going to die of cancer," she explained in a hushed voice.

Callisto's groans and sobs of pain continued.

"Can you hear me? Do you remember how to talk?"

Mouth opening, Callisto's tongue moved as if to do so. "Ow," she shuddered.

"Now, with your permission-"

"OW!" she called out.

"Can I remove your cancer?" Vanessa asked, slowly.

"Don't kill me!" the girl shrieked.

Wincing, Vanessa tried again. "Can I take away your pain? Can I remove-"

"Please?" Callisto cried, sobbing, shaking.

Wasting no time, Vanessa plunged a needle of anesthetic into her shoulder and asked Knives to help her begin.

O

O

For fear that the cats might dig it back up, Knives buried the huge, cancerous mass deep in the sand outside the garden. But he hadn't yet covered it before the shrieking began again.

Rushing to Callisto, Knives knelt beside Vanessa.

"I was trying to put in a feeding tube!" Vanessa tried to explain over the noise. "Hold her down, her bandage!"

Knives pinned Callisto's arms to her sides, keeping her from clawing anymore at the bandage at her back.

"Where is it?" she was yelling out between sobs and throes.

The screaming continued, and Knives looked over to Vanessa for instruction. In response, she sat back on her heels, frowning, feeding tube laying still in her lap.

A hissing sound escaped Callisto's throat and she cried out desperately. "Don't! Knives! No!"

Snapping his head back to her, he saw that the blindfold had wriggled away from her eyes and she was squinting up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Callisto?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"He's not hurting you," Vanessa soothed, touching the girl's bony cheek tenderly. "Keep still, you're going to be fine."

"Murder! Psycho! Rape!" she yelled out, sobbing as she tried to wring her wrists from Knives' grasp.

Aghast, Knives let go and scrambled away.

"Ow, ow, ow." Callisto balled herself up as best she could and glanced about, crying. She met eyes with Vanessa at her left, and shrieked again. "I'm not you, I'm not, I'm somebody else! Not her, not her. Ow. Give it back. Ow!"

"I can't, it's dead now," Vanessa attempted to explain. "It was cancer, you were dying."

"I was, I was, dying, angel dying, but they were lifting me," Callisto garbled, speech still quite slurred from decades of silence. "I can't hear them anymore, I can't…" She became suddenly very silent, still. "I can't…"

Vanessa heard Knives' footsteps slowly approach. "Callisto, I'm sorry, I-"

"He wants to, he wants it, get him away, no glass, the air, he can touch me now, RAPE!"

"You're safe, it's okay," Vanessa cooed, caressing her cheek. "Get some rest, eat some food, okay? Nobody's touching you unless you ask, okay?"

Nodding through sobs, Callisto closed her eyes and sunk her head to the ground.

Knives could be heard leaving the area, slinking back to the shack.

Vanessa stayed with the frail girl until she calmed enough to eat, and passed out into a troubled sleep. Finally she could leave her side, and, hesitantly, she made her way to the shack as well.


	24. 24 Tension

She didn't see Knives on her way, and went straight to the humans in the shed.

River was silent as Simon inquired about the yelling.

"No, that was a guest," Vanessa explained, seating herself on the floor of the entryway. "She's sick, in a great deal of pain. I performed surgery on her this morning, and she's…she isn't…she's blinded by the pain she's going through. She'll be fine, though, so hopefully that screaming will stop soon."

Sure, maybe the screaming will stop, she thought. But what's been said can't be taken back.

O

O

Knives was hiding in one of the barns. Not hiding, he corrected himself, but giving himself time and solitude to think. In truth, Callisto made allegations he didn't think he could face. He planned to sleep in there until…he didn't know, maybe forever.

The hundred men riding in soon, they deserved more of his attention than the Callisto situation. Trying to resolve the issues she was bringing up would be meaningless, should he fail in protecting her, and Vanessa, and their home. If he was selfish and lost valuable planning time, he knew how badly things would turn out. A last minute solution would be a slaughter, after which Knives knew he would find himself more permanently alone. Diplomacy would be an unlikely fix, considering that the little he knew of these humans was that they were relatively hostile and uneducated. Tricking them could work, but only in the short run. What about Vanessa's 'Agent Peace' solution? What about fear?

Frustration boiled into anger. The situation was ridiculous, it was unfair. He'd tried so hard to be rid of the humans so that he could protect his brethren. Why did they keep IMPOSING? And furthermore, why was it 'wrong' to fight back against them? This was a matter of protecting his home and family, for crying out loud!

He wished he knew more, more about the settlement, its people. More about how many lived there, and why they were there, and more about humans in general. He realized the irony, that he'd spent so much of his life disgusted by humans that he didn't know how their little minds worked. If he was to do anything but kill them all, he'd NEED to know what they were thinking; he would need to outsmart them.

He assumed – he knew – that he was smarter, and though a non-violent solution was a demeaning one, it was a challenge, at least. Nothing a superior species can't handle, he assured himself.

O

O

Vanessa also brushed aside thoughts of Callisto and Knives, to concentrate on her own solution. She felt she should go with what she knew, control through fear, no matter how that avenue stressed her. It worked before, and she did not want to risk losing. There was…too much to lose.

Dreading the moment, she made her way back from tending to the captives, to attend to her patient. Callisto was lying on her side, with part of her blanket tossed over her face. She'd pulled the cloth from her body and was mostly quite nude. Vanessa paused, turning back into the shack for a change of clothes before waking her.

Vanessa stepped quietly back to Callisto's grassy clearing. She gasped in shock when she came back to see the plant sitting up, staring at her with a narrowed, knowing smirk. "So you're the girl I was supposed to be?" Callisto asked in a thick tone.

"Hope not," Vanessa mumbled in response. "You wouldn't want to be me."

"I didn't and I don't. But, shh!" she whispered, leaning forward secretively as she lowered her voice. "He's not going to do anything to me. Not when you're around."

Checking the girl's pulse, Vanessa cleared her throat. "That's surely true."

Callisto smiled wide. "Yes, it is. He has you to hurt now."

"Are you trying to warn me?"

"Nope."

Wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, Vanessa breathed out slowly. "You're not scared, anymore?"

The thin, pale girl frowned. "I have too many other things to worry about now. I have to get back."

"Callisto, I had to remove your mass; you can't go back into a bulb again."

"You know, I hated you before, and I hate you now," Callisto explained, gazing up between tangles of over-long hair. "You ruined me before I was born."

"I thought you gave me permission; I misunderstood-"

"You should have heard what he did to you, oh it was amazing and terrible, and the screams of the hundreds, he killed them before they felt it but that only made it hurt for eternity after they're dead. Hate and hate and slicing, but he didn't want to touch them, the blood stained his blades even though it wasn't there," the girl whispered, eyes shut and head up as if listening for something. "You feel it on you, he feels it on him, stains, scars, fear, slaves, mix it together and it might go away."

"Lean forward, please, I need to check your back," Vanessa murmured, calming herself through a breathing exercise. She didn't want to show emotion.

Callisto did as asked, but her rushed whisper continued. "Homo sapiens – kill 'em all. Burn it, smash it, train the bugs to kill the bugs."

Borrowed memories of Vash's encounters with the Gung Ho Guns rushed to mind, causing Vanessa to breathe in sharply. She'd also seen Knives' side of the story, when she forced him to angel arm into her while he slept, so long ago. After the blades carved her skin, she felt what he'd done, knew that he meant it so completely. Those people, those demonic people, they worked for him though he loathed them all, to kill and kill and destroy Vash in the process. Vash's sobbing echoed in her ears, his tear-stained face, the burdens on his soul Knives placed upon him, because everything bad that happened to him could be traced back to Knives. Of all the suffering on Gunsmoke, it seemed somehow most of it belonged to Vash, and poor Vash, and poor everyone for having to live on this horrible planet, for having to suffer and sometimes dying at the hands of Knives' cronies and at his blades. "That's in the past," Vanessa replied, wanting so badly to forgive it all.

"The past and the future," Callisto corrected, wincing as the bandage was replaced.

Vanessa froze. "What…"

"The last thing I saw was the slaughter," she clarified. "Bloodstain the desert to keep the green virgin. Clear as day."

"Don't tear your stitches, eat as much as you can," Vanessa instructed, eyes averted, tossing the clothing into Callisto's lap before standing to leave. Turning, she hesitated, thinking.

"Lost cause. Planet can't be terraformed anyway, you know!" Callisto called out, merrily.

Fists balling at her sides. Vanessa strode away, calling over her shoulder, "Do me one favor – don't say a word to Knives!"


	25. 25 Hidden

Hands in pockets, head down, Knives' eyes flitted about the sand before him as he sauntered back to the barn he'd be sleeping in. He wouldn't likely get much sleep, though, since it was quite late and would be morning soon. That night, he'd been busy. After all, the humans were coming, and he only had two more days to prepare.

A fiendish smile crept across his face for a moment, then was pulled quickly into a straight smirk. Once inside the barn, in the musty, musky air of the barn, he closed off the doors behind and let out a low chuckle. Amused with himself, Knives climbed the ladder to the supplies loft in the back, towards the makeshift bedding he'd arranged for himself.

He climbed and, when he could see over the floor of the loft, his eyes met Vanessa's. She was seated on dirty planks beside his blankets, cross-legged and hunched over a large canteen. Upon her face was a truly puzzled expression, and when her eye met Knives' face, she glanced away nervously, fiddling with the lid of the canteen.

Knives paused mid-climb, nose at floor level. Clearing his throat dramatically, he plainly asked, "Is she doing alright?"

Eyes still averted, Vanessa nodded glumly. "She'll live. She isn't used to being sentient, yet."

And what did she say to you? he wanted to ask. "I could never hurt you, or her," he said seriously, stepping slowly up the remainder of the ladder rungs, to sit at the edge, letting his legs dangle down. He looked out over the barn floor, over the huddled masses of cats and slumbering toma. "I couldn't."

"Because we're plants," she added, nodding. "I know."

"Well, yes," he responded, honestly. "That much comes naturally to me."

"It does, NOW, huh?"

"You came here to interrogate me? Get a confession?" Knives grumbled. "I want to be alone, isn't that obvious?"

"How alone?" she asked, enigmatically.

"I suppose that depends on you."

"No, it depends on YOU."

"Vanessa, WHAT!" Knives demanded. "Is an argument, now, going to help anything? What's lost is lost, please stop rubbing salt in my wounds-"

She scoffed at the comment. He doubted she understood his meaning.

They sat stewing like that, until Knives yawned in spite of himself.

"What are we going to do?" Vanessa asked sternly.

"I'm going to disappear. That or you two are going to leave. Whichever."

Vanessa shook her head. "Day after tomorrow, what are we going to do about the raiders?"

He turned and studied her expression for a moment. "We…take her and hide in Glaston. I don't want you getting hurt, and I-"

Her brows were knitting together, and he couldn't read her expression in the dark. "What are you-" she began to ask, speaking in a low hush through gritted teeth.

"Can't you just trust me?" he sighed.

She bit her lip. "No. I can't."

"Thanks," he snapped angrily.

"Can we please work together on this?" she pleaded.

"Absolutely not," he insisted, haughtily. "You're going to Glaston with Callisto. Hide there, like I told you. Easiest way for me to revert back to a raving lunatic is to witness one of you hurt," he sneered, turned away.

She remembered, he knew. As well as he, she had his memories, had stolen them from him as he slept. He'd begun to hope she'd learned to see past what he was, to see who he became. While he wasn't willing to say that everything he'd done was wrong, he knew that the logic he'd been using was flawed. Vash was right, that he shouldn't have crashed the ships. After all, he'd killed many fellow plants in the Fall, and had forced mankind into the difficult situation that led to the indefinite dependence upon the plants. In essence, he came to see that he was responsible for some of the evils he sought retribution for. How flawed he had been, indeed.

Vanessa suddenly rose and re-seated herself beside him, at his left. She poked his hand. "Show me?" she asked, referring to an angel arm memory exchange.

He thought. Maybe it would do, to earn her trust. But maybe he shouldn't need that do to it. "Whatever you saw, I could change my mind. It wouldn't help you to predict what I'll do to them."

She sighed slowly.

"You think you know what you'll find in here," he added, tapping his temple. "You don't give me much credit. Considering what you saw before, I suppose you can't be blamed. I'll offer a wager – after this whole 'human debacle' is over, if you still want to, I'll show you. But you have to show me yours, too."

She bowed her head and pulled her hands into her lap.

"Oh," he caught himself, "I didn't mean…I was talking about memories."

Instead of responding, she rose silently and moved to the ladder. As she descended, he watched, lips drawn tight. She padded quietly across the barn floor beneath him and let moonlight spill inside when she cracked a door open to leave.

"I can't win," he muttered to himself, rising and arranging his 'bed.' "I'll always be the bad guy."


	26. 26 Leave

Vanessa drug her feet in the sand on her way back to the shed, chugging off the last of her water. She felt sore all over, and was now both physically and emotionally exhausted. Inside, she changed and flopped into bed.

Startling Vanessa back out of bed, Callisto giggled. "I got cold. Changed the bedding first, and I saw your secret."

"Secret?" she asked, easing back into bed more cautiously. "Do I want to know?"

"I know what you did. You disappeared when the suns were here, but when the moons came out I found you. Far away."

"I was practicing, it's not a big deal," Vanessa replied lazily.

"Big deal to them. It's very quiet out here, did you notice that?"

"Quiet without the angels?" she guessed.

"I'm sleepy," Callisto murmured, rolling back to face the wall.

O

O

Come sunup, Knives was snoozing peacefully in his loft, dreaming some interesting dream. The barn door slammed open and a rush of dry air hit him. He lifted himself upon his elbows to see her storm in. Vanessa's boot falls met the solid floor and betrayed the anger her voice would soon announce.

But she waited, standing there with the most hateful look upon her face. Scratching his head, Knives slowly descended the ladder to face her. "Good morning to you, too."

"How could you think I was that stupid?" she asked bitterly. "I can see where you tried to cover up your trail, but you didn't do a very good job."

He played innocent, standing there, eyes wide and silent.

"What did you do to them?" she screamed in his face, breathing hot against his skin. "What was the point?"

"It would have been easier if you believed they escaped on their own; would have saved me the time of being accused of…Listen, I didn't-"

"Don't LIE to me!" she yelled, hovering so close he could smell orange juice on her breath. "River and Simon – did you kill them?"

"For your information, I let them go," he admitted, smirking slightly. "I assumed you were going to anyway. Sorry, didn't know you meant to keep them as pets," he added, leaning back an inch or two.

"It's not as simple as that; I know you!" she insisted, voice wavering. "This is the first step for you, isn't it? Tomorrow…if you didn't kill them, you sent them as a trap, you must have-"

"About that trust I was asking for…"

"Knives, you snuck into their shed in the middle of the freaking night, to let them go? And that makes you saunter around with that nasty smile you had?"

"What did you come for, Vanessa," he whispered, leaning in until his nose pressed against hers. "What do you want to hear?"

"Something I'll believe," she whispered back.

"If you interfere," he hissed, "I might kill them all."

She glared back, stern, as her face grew hot and her lip began to quiver.

"Go to Glaston, I will take care of this," he pronounced slowly, allowing her to step back away from him. "We are out of time. A cart is packed. Leave. Now."

"I don't want to kill you," she choked out, eyebrows creasing her forehead.

Knives' gaze softened. "If you don't leave, I'm afraid I might kill you, too."

Vanessa continued to step backwards, eyes locked with his, until finally she turned and rushed out.

Standing in the shaft of sunlight the cracked door let in, Knives frowned, peering out at her as she shuffled away. He stayed there after she rushed into the shack, out of sight. His eyes fell to the ground just outside, staring, letting his eyes waver out of focus. Heaving deep breaths, one after the other, ignoring the rumbling of his stomach, the pounding in his head, he simply stared.

O

O

"I want to go, too," Callisto whined, crawling out of bed as she watched Vanessa stuff things into a knapsack.

"You should stay here," Vanessa insisted. "I'm not coming back."

"Good, me too, then! Me, too! Don't leave me with Daddy."

"Daddy? Don't…Listen, if you go with me you very well might die. Or worse, they could take you as a slave, or a prisoner…Do you have any idea what that means?"

"Books told me. Angels told me. Hm, YOU told me. Going on 100, you know. I just made a decision, and I'll fight you to go."

"You'd lose."

"One kitty, two kitty?"

"You're almost a hundred, but you're still a child! No cats. Only toma. Goodbye."

"You hate children," Callisto sneered, "Especially your own."

Vanessa tensed further. "If you want to run away, do it on your own."

"At least you don't LOVE your children, LOVE love," Callisto sang as Vanessa stomped out.


	27. 27 Turn

Soon enough, Vanessa snapped the reins and rushed into the arid desert. The course was set toward the Glaston complex.

A half hour in, she could no longer see the garden on the horizon behind her. The first moon became visible as the suns began to set. With a jolt, she turned the cart sharply to the side.

The men riding in would be coming from the settlement, far to the East. There were huge sand dunes in the area of the valley, so their logical course of arrival would be through the valley mouth, the calm pathway she and Knives used to reach the eastern plants. If they were still journeying through the flatlands, she'd be able to hear them from the mouth, she figured. The ears come in handy, sometimes, she reflected. The strange-looking things helped her to hear tomas steps and voices from much further away than until they'd come into sight, a talent that'd helped her avoid many a conflict back in the day.

There likely was still time. She could make it before they saw the green.

Hopefully, she'd at least get the chance to warn the raiders before they made it to Knives. Maybe those old tactics of hers would buy them time. Whatever she'd end up doing, it'd be better than letting Knives slaughter them.

Every ile or so, she'd stop the toma and climb atop the cart to close her eyes and listen to the distance. It stole time, distance, but she was nearly to the mouth by then and if they still weren't within earshot of her, they were far enough away anyhow. Everything will be fine, she recited in her brain, everything will be fine.

She bit into her tongue with the sharp, pointed teeth filling the back of her jaw. The slight taste of blood in her mouth kept her awake, kept her alert. Humans are dangerous, she knew that from…'experiences' she'd had. Even Vash only knew a fraction of her stories, the few she'd told him disturbed him well enough. If she played this right, if she was careful, she could avoid adding one more story to her list.

The toma's pace slowed. Strange, they'd never been stubborn on a trip before. Lashing the reins, she attempted to hurry them up.

In the blink of an eye, she was pitched forward, head slamming into the windshield of the cart cabin.

Coming to rest from the jolt, her neck fell onto the dashboard. She coughed, wrenching herself back against the back of the seat. The cart began to move again and spun to turn full around. Vanessa slumped into the seat beside her from the shift. Pulling herself back upright with the dashboard, she squinted to see that the toma were turning, that the window wasn't broken, but there was a bloody smear. Reaching up with one hand, she winced, and pulled away fingers moist with blood. Before they slipped from view, she grasped at the reins, and pulled them back up to her, through the underneath of the dashboard. Whipping them about several times, she was unable to elicit a response from the toma. They were gaining in speed, rushing back for the garden.

Her head was beginning to hurt, and she didn't care to think of why they were doing it. She turned round and ducked out the back window to retrieve some supplies. She couldn't carry it all, but with a few canteens and the main backpack, she'd make it. Hastily, she grabbed for them and tossed them out the side, before diving out herself, rolling to a stop in the sand.

She pulled herself up and leaned forward on her palms for a moment. The toma cart rushed away. Groaning, she stood and spotted her supplies back a ways. Taking only a moment to equip herself and get a sip of water, she trudged towards the valley mouth, fingers checking her scalp through hair dirty with blood and sand.


	28. 28 Red

By nightfall, she began to worry. The trauma wasn't serious, but with even a mild concussion, she couldn't guarantee that the angel arm would be stable. She doubted what she was doing, but still she walked onward. Any moment, she felt she'd begin to hear the raiders. Any moment…

Yet when the rustling strides of an approaching toma finally met her ears, the sound came from the direction of the garden. Her throat tightened, as did her fists. Yet she still walked.

The pace didn't slow until it was very near, and then the sole tomas trotted towards her, around, and finally stopped her dead in her tracks. Growling low, she stepped around the tomas, and walked away. It came alongside her, matching her footfalls.

"Why are you doing this," he asked softly. "What do you think-"

"You know what I'm doing."

"Then why try to trick me? I have a scope, you know."

The barn roof! Damn it, he must've climbed up there and seen her turn from Glaston-ward towards the valley mouth. "I can hold my own against you, you know. You may as well-"

"Were you going to use Callisto for this?" he suddenly interrupted. "How could you bring her into this, the strain would probably kill her! The garden's defenseless now, if someone were to raid it at this moment we're too far to…You were really willing to put Callisto in that kind of danger?"

"Huh?" She looked up at him, confused. He was pointing behind her, where Vanessa spotted a figure on foot, about a forth an ile back. "How in the…"

"She jumped out after you did."

"She was in the cart? That sneaky little…"

"Perhaps you were too distracted to notice," he surmised, dismounting from his tomas to walk alongside her. "Vanessa, I'm sorry about your head. They're trained with a whistle; I suppose I never mentioned it. Come back," he demanded. "It's not going to work."

Vanessa's eyes watered from the throbbing of her head, and the suns were so bright… "I've done this a hundred times before. It always works," she grumbled.

"Not on these humans, it won't. I spoke with the siblings, before I sent them off, to NEGOTIATE, mind you. And from what they told me, I know those men won't run off in fear of you. They're desperate, unreasonably focused…Wave your weapon around, and they'll keep coming," he explained. Pausing, he waited for a response, but she stared forward angrily, quickening her pace. She was stumbling some. "They heard about your weapon, they'll be wary of it. Word spread fast after your escape, and the description of your arm was…well, to my recollection, it's remarkably accurate. They all know about it. They're not terribly afraid."

"What…?"

"You didn't kill anyone, Vanessa. They…Una and…Corn, or something like that? They lived."

"But I…"

"You thought you killed them. But you didn't – it would've been an easy mistake to make, given the state you were in."

Sure, she was dizzy and disoriented and her vision was hazy at the time, but she was so certain that there was a lot of red, that their injuries were extensive.

"I'm not going to kill anyone, that's not the plan," he continued genially. "I sent the siblings off to appeal to reason. Would believe me if I'd told you my plan?"

She thought a moment. "But, you just said, they're unreasonable…"

"No I didn't. I'm just trying to say fear won't work on them, not from you. They'd be more likely to shoot you upon spotting you, once they saw the woman from the story than to turn tail and run from you."

"Shut up! I can't risk believing you! Even if you DO know all that, if you really mean to do what you say, if it doesn't work out you'd still kill-"

"Vanessa!" he roared, grabbing her by the shoulders to stop her. "I don't want to play the judge and executioner anymore! Didn't you say I've changed? Have you changed your mind? A few lies from a girl you've never met, and I'm a monster again?"

Frowning, Vanessa stared off in Callisto's direction. She was just standing still, like them. "She speaks the truth," she sighed.

Knives' hands left her shoulders. He gazed at the side of her face she had turned to him, the scarred part. "How unfortunate," he murmured as he watched her watch Callisto, and in one swift motion he plunged a little syringe full of fluid into her shoulder.

"Whu-" she tried softly, as her eyes unfocused and she fell into his arms.


	29. 29 Drugged

This wasn't the plan.

Sedating them was barbaric, it was…well, it was exactly what Vanessa'd done to him many, many times before. But it still wasn't right.

They were quite a burden to his single tomas, himself and the two unconscious lady plants, but they managed to make it back quickly enough. The garden was untouched, the parameter marks had not been tripped, and there was no sign of an intruder…yet.

As usual, he found Vanessa's resolve remarkable, admirable; even cute. The way her face contorted into anger, the way she dared to say things, do things that…He had killed men for far, far less. My, how he'd changed.

Why, if Vash were still there, he wondered if they'd still be in conflict. If Knives tried – really tried – to avoid violently altering the course of human life again, would he and his twin get along? Probably not, he thought, how could I stand such a crybaby?

And he wouldn't forgive me.

"Bah!" Knives grumbled, shaking the thought from his head. That was a thing he'd likely never know.

Back to the task at hand.

Knives carried the girls, one by one, to the back of the toma cart that he'd whistled in. The creatures had been resting at their barn door obediently. Most of the survival items were still intact. The blood smear on the inside of the windshield had dried to a rusty brown.

He'd tied Callisto's wrists to a rivet in the fore of the cart bed with tape. That one was truly unpredictable – he'd never been able to suss out what she was going to pull. Better to keep her where he could find her. Luckily, she'd fallen fast and hard from the injection. It would've been so much more difficult to keep his cool with her screeching and carrying on.

He had far more to worry about from Vanessa. Unlike Callisto, Vanessa could protect herself. She could use her weapon. Certainly, it'd been ages since he'd seen it, and it being the first time she'd used it (and even then, only with his assistance), but he had to assume it would be much the same. Thus, it was necessary to secure her with Callisto behind her, the only 100 safe area, allowing her to face outward to defend herself should the need arise…should he fail.

Vanessa's system handled the tranquilizer better than Callisto. After all, it hadn't been but a year or so since she'd lost and regained her legs. There were surely many doses of such drugs in her near past. The chemicals rendered her harmless, but she had kept slightly conscious the entire time. She kept trying to speak, but nothing made sense. If she wanted to curse and yell at him, he'd rather not hear it anyway.

As he finished securing Vanessa's wrists to the cart's rear floor, she kept herself shakily upright, propped up onto her legs but hunched over to keep balance. She was still trying to form words, but he wasn't listening. He was cleaning up her forehead, her scraped hands; he was explaining.

"But now Escape Plan A's basically shot, thank you, and this is Plan B. This is your cart, loaded up, ready to take out. Now, I'll be driving it out, taking you to Glaston. You'll have everything you need there, for…whatever you end up doing. I wouldn't recommend coming back here, but if you want to take back the garden, I suppose I won't be there to stop you. Once we get to the complex, I'm taking my share of the supplies and two of these toma. You won't see me again. If things go their worst here, I won't be driving you out; you'll need to angel arm out of the tape, do what you have to do to get in the cab and get out of here."

"Ree darb rains," she was mumbling.

"Can you do that?" he asked, stern.

"Nuh, bet…they reedarbrains, not-"

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE ESCAPE PLAN?" he annunciated slowly, loud.

"Yessir," she slurred, staring at him with glazed-over vision, wincing. "Getit. She…she…was trube…hut…" She breathed in slowly, and exhaled slower.

"You're not making sense," he muttered, wrapping a few blankets about her. Apparently she was to sleep tied so.

"I. Mint. MEANT. She. Plants. Red. Are. Brains."

He frowned. All these years, he'd assumed that the plants communicated mind to mind. Naturally, Callisto would have been in communication with them. She most likely couldn't still do so, without her angel core. But reading the minds of others? Sure, it was within the scope, but – Callisto knew about every thought Knives had had within her complex? That would explain…

"Thoughts. Rent. Aren't. Ack. Shuns. Err…Pry. Vet."

"So this ISN'T about things she told you? When did you STOP believing what she said? There…there are a lot of things I've thought about that…Well, I wasn't going to DO them."

She nodded, blinking hard. "youdidntletmefinish," she mumbled.

"I misinterpreted your response. But I would've sedated you anyway. I was afraid you might be determined to settle things your way. And really, it wouldn't have worked."

"Then I'd killum," she responded, smirking sadly.

"Don't be ridiculous." Knives grew wearly of this self-sacrifice nonsense.

"Then you ARE gonna kill 'em."

"Not if I can help it. If I play this right, you won't ever have a REASON to kill them. Neither will I." He stretched. "Now, when he - whoever - comes, I'll be standing out there," he indicated, pointing to the shaded spot between two of the smaller barns. From where the cart was positioned, Vanessa had a perfect view of this area, from a safe distance off. It would be a fine place for a showdown, where he could bottleneck the opponents and be relatively safe from projectiles. "The second you think you ought to, leave. Don't be a hero. Now, I have some things to do."

With that, his footsteps left behind her, toward the garden. She craned around to see him, but her eye wasn't focusing. Callisto looked peaceful, bundled up to her nose. It was getting dark. It was all spinning.

Heaving forward, Vanessa vomited into the sands behind the cart. Uck. Some tranquilizers are easier on the stomach than others.

In the distance behind, she heard some muffled noises, the last thing she remembered before she fell asleep.


	30. 30 Arrival

"Wake up, they're here."

Damn, the nausea. What did he use on her? She felt like throwing up, but nothing more came up. Her stomach growled, and she thought she might be hungry, and she had to pee.

Wincing, the dual suns' light hit her when his shadow moved away from her face. He was tromping off to the prearranged spot. Squinting, she could almost see him, but it hurt to see at all. Oh, the nausea.

Why couldn't she hear them? Well, she could sort of hear men's voices, but not their toma. She just wasn't hearing well, the damned side effects. Ack, she couldn't see, it was so BRIGHT! How was she supposed to-?

"…slaves…"

Vanessa's jaw dropped at the word. She craned her head, but only got snippets.

"…slaves…few days…"

"…by first sunset they…"

"…stupid…die…"

"…kill them…"

"…hardly expecting a massacre now…Vanessa…"

Who said that? She couldn't tell, which was Knives and…

"…Vanessa…Vash the Stampede, but…"

"…evil twin…"

Two of the toma behind her stood and started to clean each other, the snorting sounds drowning out the conversation in her ears. She hissed, 'shh' to no avail.

Her mind raced. Moments later footsteps neared her. She flung her pained eyes open to see a hazy form of Knives standing there. Smiling? A glint of silver, what was in his hand? Blades?

Closer still. That's not a blade, that's a remote device of some sort.

She remained rigid and silent as he unbound her wrists. Callisto squealed and hollered as he undid hers. Once free, Callisto scrambled out of the cart and ran off into the garden. Vanessa dropped shakily to her feet and began to stumble off in the same direction.

"I assume you heard all that," Knives asked, following close behind.

"Sounded a lot less…EVIL, when you explained it before," she growled, tottering as she walked.

"Change of plans. I came up with the slave part last minute; I demanded workers, but slaves would-" He stopped; he could feel her seethe at the word. "Well, they won't really be slaves once they're here anyhow," he insisted. "Listen, I'm sorry I didn't consult you, but I had to make a choice; time's of the essence here."

"Little confused here, Knives," she grumbled, trundling into the shaded shack, "Before I get the CHANCE to absorb your 'plan,' before I can TRY to trust you, you say there's a totally new plan?"

"Well, the problem was, although they WERE fairly reasonable about the garden maintenance, it seems they don't mind it being plant-run after all…They only care about physical distance from plants. And it seems that, knowing what they do now, we're included in their definition of 'plant'…"

"Start from the top!" she wailed, dropping heavily onto the bed.

He waited in the doorway, silhouetted by sunlight. "I sent the siblings off with a peace offering. I offered them regular donations, produce; that ridiculously large transport cart I'd been keeping around? Simon and I filled it with everything it could hold. It took ten toma to pull it out to the waiting horde. Simon is acting as my liaison. That was Simon, just now. So…I didn't kill him. He's delivered my message; I told them what we are. That you and I and Vash are plants. Things to be feared. At least, that I am. I sent Simon out with the word, that you were here, but since you're female you weren't as powerful as I am."

"Thanks," she muttered sarcastically.

"Sorry. I'm telling them what they need to hear, not the truth."

She raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

"It seems they buy the story. Tales of the legendary Vash the Stampede run deep. They don't require a demonstration, though I'll give them one if… The story fits well enough for them. But they're as superstitious as they are desperate. Their demands are…bold, to say the least. I've agreed. If you-"

"YOU? AGREED to their DEMANDS? What demands?"

"I'm getting to it. They're camped in the lip of the valley, eating I imagine. According to Simon, they sent off a good portion of it back to the settlement, and they seem to actually UNDERSTAND that these crops need to be tended by knowing hands. But what we're producing isn't enough. I reached the limit to how much I can produce and harvest, long ago. So they're sending workers to tend the fields. And on account of their plant angel superstition, that means we have to leave."

"If they won't come close to us, you don't HAVE to do anything."

He nodded slightly in agreement. "They have some long-range missiles, nothing terribly advanced. But I don't think even they believe their threats anymore."

She sighed. "Then why are you doing this?"

"I don't know."

"You – Knives - agreed to let humans colonize your master work. Agreed to give up your home. Either you're a very strange liar, or you've gone insane."

Scoffing, he crossed his arms tightly. "In every other scenario, the likelihood of us being caught unawares one day, killed in our sleep or something…Without a mass slaughter, the chances are very poor that we'll come out safely if we try to stay here. The work around here is simple enough; with enough humans to run things, the garden no longer needs me. I was holding it back. It's unfortunate that this also means Callisto and yourself are without a home, but you would both be safer in a complex. I can help you start a garden of your own…?"

"And finish teaching me how to calibrate the plants? After all, if you'll be 'disappearing,' I'll need to take care of the ones in the complex we're to live in, not to mention the others outside that…Would they be without your services as well?" she asked, calm now.

Knives fell silent, head bowed slightly. Finally clearing his throat, he spoke with a hint of sadness in his voice. "I'll teach you what you need. I'll take care of the others. The sooner we leave, the better. Should those humans lay eyes on we plants…With them so close by, we aren't safe here. Who knows, Simon could be lying."

"How can I believe that you won't one day get rid of them? Change your mind? That this plan isn't a front for your REAL plan?"

"I suppose you can't be sure, hmm? Unless I'm dead?" he asked softly, far too comfortable with the thought, almost inviting it.

"Or if I stay with you," she added quickly.

The sunlight at his back made it impossible to distinguish his expression. Fuzzy dots of dust danced in the light between them as time ticked by. She dropped her eyes to the stripped-bare surface of the mattress she sat upon, reflecting on all she now knew…or thought she knew.

"I get to meet the HUMANS!" a happy voice sang out from within the garden.

Knives sighed audibly, taking a moment to check the device he'd been carrying. Tapping at the display, he found that 83 of the food-implanted sensors were still moving steadily east, nearly out of sensor range, and the remaining 17 were stationary, representing the raiders who'd eaten their fill and stayed for Simon's return. That's what he assumed, at least. Shifting screens, he noted for the eightieth time that day that not one of his parameter marks had been disturbed. Simon's little blip migrated slowly east. "I can sedate her again," Knives grumbled, referring to Callisto.

"No, we should leave her," Vanessa whispered back hurriedly. "They don't know she's a plant; you didn't say she was."

"No-"

"If she'd gleaned ANYTHING from MY mind – and she said she did – she's aware of the dangers. I think it's her decision." Turning away from the sound in time to see him leave, Vanessa frowned, and noticed that everything of use or want had already been removed from the shack. She resolved to take one last tour of the gardens, but didn't come across Callisto on her way.


	31. 31 Tongari

"She wished she could be with Tongari, with Vash," came the low whisper, hitting Knives like a gust of winter air. "But she's beneath him, far beneath him, just like you, both far beneath Tongari, what a good match you are. Prolific murderer thinks he's a victim. Long-suffering victim thinks she's a murderer. How romantic."

"Aren't you supposed to be afraid of me," Knives snarled, his back turned from her as she peeked through the barn doorway.

"You thought about the bad things, but you didn't hurt me," she noted, leaning against the doorframe casually. "There's a difference. I get it now."

Knives glared into the toma stable before him and resolved to seat himself upon a large sack of feed. He let out a long breath. "Come here, Callisto, I want to ask you some things," he asked, patting beside him.

"She told me not to talk to you," Callisto replied, smirking. She stepped inside anyway, gait still a little wobbly, clothes hanging pathetically upon her thin, thin frame. Quite deliberately, she dropped herself heavily upon the feed sack beside him. "But I can do whatever I want."

"What happened to Vanessa on Earth?" he quizzed solemnly, bracing himself for the truth.

"Agent Peace; picked the battles, showed it off, respect from fear. Mines blew off her legs, ew."

"Besides that. Tell me about when they hurt her."

"Nobody hurt her. Not besides that; things were safe."

"Good." Knives relaxed for only a moment, before tensing again. Long-suffering victim? Dangers to glean from her mind? "Then, how has she suffered?"

"A little pain, a lot of loneliness on the Earth-planet. The most pain was on this planet, lots of loneliness AND pain," Callisto noted whimsically, studying a strand of her long, dirty, knotted hair. She glanced up, smiling. "You've got to leave before they get here, that's what you said. Leave, you and she, leave, she can tell you."

"Wipe that smile off your face," Knives snarled, jumping to his feet in a sudden rush of adrenaline. "My pain, her pain, it was all so FUNNY to you in the bulbs?" He shoved his hands in his pockets to remind himself not to slap her cruel little face.

"Pain wasn't funny, it was powerful," Callisto corrected, looking confused. "Powerful emotions were so interesting to us. The muscles in my face are smiling because I'm happy about humans coming. It's a separate thing."

Breath quickening, Knives' mind went back to the suffering…Vanessa. "Tell me what they did to her, on THIS planet."

Callisto shook her head. "You haven't the time; there are SO many stories! Ask her for chronological order for the worst of it; those last two times, it was only one guy each time, and she didn't get beat very badly, and they only TRIED to get inside her, unlike before-" Watching Knives suddenly dash out of the barn, Callisto turned her attention to some nearby kittens, laughing. Life in the bulb allowed her to directly feel the thoughts of those around her; outside the bulb, she hadn't yet realized that although she couldn't hear the thoughts, they were still there. The world was really numb and quiet outside her mind, as if the only mind left were hers.

Knives, on the other hand, breathed the sharp sting of life into his nostrils, felt the burn the air made in his chest, making his heart throb with pain at every beat. His imagination brought to mind images that made him feel a need to vomit. Every scar of hers had a story; he'd never let himself imagine from what. It was like his brother, he'd thought. But she wasn't Vash – not as strong, not as armed. There were things one could do to a female; things he doubted happened to Vash.

These sins tipped the scales unfavorably for humanity. This…changed things.

O

O

"Don't over-water. Don't plant seeds too close together. Don't hurt the insects or the cats. Toma stay in the barns. Only some plants are meant for eating. Picked fruit will rot, but vegetables – especially roots – can be preserved in the ground.

"If you are slaves, I am your master. However, you will live like free men unless I am told of offense, at which time you will be punished. The last of our human slaves remains here to work with you. She is Callisto; do not harm her.

"The furthest shed is full of scrap – you can use this to make your homes around the garden, as well as to build additions to the garden. Eat what you will, there is plenty. Everything else is to be sent off to the settlement.

"Behave. Your God is watching."

So finishing, Simon breathed a huff of relief. His eyes spanned the widened eyes of the slaves crowded about him. He alone led them here; the others from the settlement were too wary of angels to deliver the slaves to the garden themselves. On a lone tomas, he'd led over a hundred slaves through the flats and desert land. Trudging along on foot, they'd been in a hush, praying aloud. Luckily, they'd been given enough water and food chips to survive the journey.

Upon arrival at the garden, he'd gone on ahead to confirm that the angels were gone before the slaves would approach. Callisto met him at the garden entryway, where he found Knives' letter. A hundred paper-bound volumes lined several shelves there, in the battered shack, which Knives instructed Simon to study, read, and teach to the slaves. The letter, he was to read immediately to them, before letting them in the garden. Simon obediently followed orders, confident that if what was said of the angels were true, then doing Knives' bidding would bode well in the afterlife – perhaps Simon was to be the lucky man to not burn in hellfire for being in angels' presence.

Silence fell upon the huddled masses before him. He shifted his weight upon the creaking barrel he stood upon. "So spoke the angels!" he announced, beaming. "Under their protection, you are all free here! Come inside, carefully, let's see the garden!"

Smiles broke upon faces and weary feet shuffled forward as they reverently entered in a line behind a humming, smiling Callisto. Their eyes and faces lit up, life coming back to them, as they breathed the humid air and let the greenery envelope them. They piled their shoes at the entryway and stepped delicately upon the grasses, barely daring to touch anything but long enough to pluck a bit of produce to devour with a hunger unlike any they knew they had.

Simon stood in the midst of this, leaning against a mighty tree, surrounded by singing, laughing, crying, and the joy he hadn't realized slaves could possess.


	32. 32 Responsibility

"I'm sure she'll be fine," Vanessa sighed, propping herself against the side of the cart's cabin to study him. He was hunched over the reins, head turned out the side window. She couldn't see his face but for the edge of it, and he looked unhappy. "You're not hiding it very well," she grumbled. "With a little stealth, we can sneak out there whenever we want to check on her. Otherwise, you have to trust that she's a smart girl. She'll be fine."

At that, he felt like roaring in anger. Vanessa's a smart girl, and SHE wasn't fine. He hadn't actually given a second thought to Callisto after speaking with her at the barn, not until Vanessa mentioned it in the desert. But he didn't care to think much about Callisto. His thoughts were fixed on Vanessa. And he didn't want her to know. So he gripped the reins until his knuckles went white, kept his eyes trained on the dunes to his left, and grunted out a calm reply. "You're probably right."

He agreed with her FAR too easily. She folded her arms tighter upon her chest and huffed audibly. They were near-halfway to Glaston and she wasn't sure if she'd see him again after that. Heck, even if she tried to follow him he'd probably notice. 'After we get to Glaston,' she thought bitterly, 'the only chance I'll ever get to speak with him would probably happen during battle.' Best to try to speak with him presently.

Every muscle she could see on him was tensed and he twitched slightly once in a while. Besides that brief sentence of agreement and the hushed question, "Are you ready to leave?" he'd said nothing to her.

The moons were coming out, and she felt a sense of urgency. "This is very difficult for you," she stated slowly, leaning against the dashboard to try to see more of his face. "There are humans in your garden. Right now. A part of you must be dying inside. And I really want to believe that you've accepted it; that you intend to give up the garden for good, peacefully. So, um, if you TALK to me maybe I'll know that this anger you're hiding poorly won't result in…bad things." He didn't respond for a moment, and the seating squeaked when she leaned forward to place a hand on his shoulder. She meant to try to turn him towards her some, but instead he remained turned away. Actually, he seemed to shudder when she touched him. Instinctively, she drew her hand away.

Knives closed his eyes tightly, attempting to swallow with his very sore, dry throat. His chest heaved for a moment, but he wouldn't let himself cry, wouldn't let out the rage, wouldn't let himself vomit.

"Stop the toma," Vanessa demanded, her voice surprisingly gentle.

Perhaps this was the place to do it. They were far enough from the garden, far enough from the Glaston complex and anything else he worried about destroying. Pulling on the reins, he led the beasts to a halt. He rested his elbows on the dash and closed his hands around his face. Was he ready for this?

His emotional conflict was interrupted by the metallic whine of her opening her side door. Glancing up only for a moment to see her in the back, grabbing a backpack, he hid his face in his palms once more, digging his fingertips into his scalp. He breathed as slowly as he could force himself to, hot, wet breath into his hands from his nose. His throat tightened even more, if that was even possible. He didn't WANT to do it, but he felt he had to.

"I'm going back," she announced, voice seeming so far, echoing in his throbbing mind. "They won't even know I'm there. Looks like, if we ever see each other again, it'll be the death of one of us, huh?"

He could hear her breathing; the sand granules crunching at her feet as she shifted her weight to her other leg. She was waiting for a response, and he had to give her one. He rubbed his itchy eyes. Uncurling himself, he straightened his back enough to meet her gaze. She looked very serious, yet more sad than angry. That's the way he was certain he looked as well. As he opened his cabin door, she backed up quickly.

"…Unless you want to end this now," she added, dropping her backpack to the ground behind her. At this distance, her angel arm would probably destroy the cart and toma, let alone what it'd do to Knives. But if what she sensed from him was right, she needed to end it quickly, efficiently. She could try to cripple him, maybe then the plants would still have a chance, since she doubted her own abilities to regulate the bulbs. Callisto probably knew how to take care of them, maybe the girl would have the sense to do it before the plants started dying off, without their usual caretaker around. Vanessa would probably be killed in this, too, so what did it matter what supplies and transportation would survive?

Knives stood, slowly, and drug his feet towards her, arms clasped behind his back. He couldn't meet her face as she slumped to her knees, readying an attack. How many times had she believed that he would kill her? How could she still think it? How easy would it be for her to wipe him out? If winning meant killing her, he'd probably rather lose. But, to kill her to put her out of her misery? That one he wasn't sure of yet.

Vanessa had let her hands dangle between her knees. "Don't come any closer!" she shouted. The closer he came, the less chance to dodge her attack; if she wanted to beat him, there was no harm in his approach. "Stop where you are," she shouted, nonetheless. "I don't want to do this!" But she knew she would do it. Otherwise there were too many doubts…

He'd finally brought his eyes to hers, and she stared into the face of the murderer. That is who he was, a murderer, who hated all things human and who caused most of the bad things that had happened to everyone on SEEDs, on Gunsmoke…This was the angelic face of death. Knives. Cold, blue eyes were narrowed, were growing nearer. Her chin tilted up as he approached. She drew out her angel weapon just a bit, just enough to tickle her neck, just enough to let its glow illuminate his face. A warning.

Eyes not leaving hers – hers like twin pools of shallow ocean water, if one pool were partly made of milk – Knives walked to where she sat and settled himself onto his knees. He was careful not to touch her, careful to keep eye contact as her angel whips writhed up her back and glowed upon her shoulders like neon white snakes. The eerie light reflected off the tear rolling down her cheek. His hands remained safely behind his back. There was no easy answer, nothing to take the pain away.

"This is the hardest thing I'll ever do."

Knives nodded. "The ignorance was nice while it lasted."

"I wanted to be with you," she whispered, keeping her weapon steady. Smiling slightly, she winced as her weapon fluctuated a bit, crackling with energy. "Love you, Knives," she choked out in parting.

"There's two ways this can end – either way I can accept. But, if possible, don't kill me yet," he demanded, almost emotionlessly, as he suddenly darted forward and embraced her. Before she could shove him back, if she'd wanted to, his chin was over her shoulder, his right arm still tucked away, his left arm wrapped around her such that the core in his forearm was pressed against her back and his hand firmly held the back of her neck to keep her still.

Before Vanessa could react otherwise, Knives drew out a burst of her weapon.


	33. 33 Trauma

Knives couldn't tell if he was dying, or dead. It was loud, intense, maybe it was pain. Physical pain or emotional pain – frankly, it was difficult to distinguish between the two. He couldn't find his heartbeat or make himself breathe. His physical body didn't respond – as if it no longer existed.

Attempts to solve such questions were quickly abandoned as the flood of memories rushed upon him, crushing his ability to think. His mind was helpless to shove the things away, to keep her years from suffocating him completely. Try as he may've, the flood enveloped him completely and he became her. Rushing at him in no logical order, everything became his own memory; everything of hers, and everything that Vash had given her, and all that she'd stolen from Knives. Coded separately by feelings discernible almost by color, each of the three beings' memories coexisted, swapping back and forth in a fury of yelling, crying, whispering. Everyone was talking at once, nobody stopped moving. He felt everything at once, and couldn't pull away. As if it was someone else's memory, he saw his hundred-years-ago self's memories play, so different than he felt he remembered them, and he saw Vash's take on many of those things. Then Vanessa's memories lent her perspective, so odd still. And like punches to his gut, he met with memories older still, memories of her when she knew not what she was, and so many hideous humans around her had their own theories. Their theories of her existence, witch, demon, devil, half-animal, gave them excuse to do things to her that…Knives wondered if any human had ever endured so much. At his worst, Knives would never have subjected Vash to some of these things.

He saw episodes in which she became what they called her, she placed curses upon them, using her knowledge of medicine against them. Again and again came attacks upon her, mirrored by the attacks upon Vash, mirrored by the attacks Knives lashed upon others. Vash's body was torn open, again and again, while Vanessa endured surface wounds, mostly. Surface wounds and the desolation of being violated. She screamed, she cried, and – in the worst of them – she made no sound at all. Physical pain was minor to her; it was the emotion that tore her open, that stung worse than the bruises and came back when attacks repeated. Vanessa had been rebuilt from ruin many times. She hadn't forgotten a single detail of the pain, or the beauty, and she made no attempts to distance herself from the truth. Her feelings were a sickeningly bright pink, like fresh scar tissue, layers upon layers, exposed and pink.

Flesh itched. Disgusting. Tainted, get it off of me!

If he felt himself in skin ever again, he wondered in a flicker of thought whether he'd be able to accept it? Skin that had touched her, her skin that had been touched, that she'd accepted long ago would never be washed clean.

For a moment that, unlike the other memories, slid through him far too slowly, he saw his brother through her eyes. He saw poor Vash, poor Vash, she thought of him, how hard it was to comfort him, how his harsh scars, his missing limb, the chunks of him missing, how these had made him better. Somehow he'd been wrong to taunt him about healing – if Vash could have known how to heal himself, he wouldn't have done it. In her eyes, his soul was of far less mass than a soul could be, it was lighter and lighter for each of the drips of blood, the bits of flesh that he was missing. But she, no, she was less a woman while he was more a man. She could touch him, but she didn't know where he was, and she eventually gave up finding him.

Knives watched bright blips of happiness, blurry, it could have been himself or his twin. Blurry and distant memories of her daughter, so distant, Tessla, walking away with Vash, with the humans, and Vanessa forced herself to see that distance. She forced herself to remember everything, the cold of the cave, the pain of a slap in the face, the pressure of handshakes, the reek of men's sweat when they were blinded by rage and power, the colors of a forest, the texture of the skin on Vash's chest, the taste of raw fish, the pattern of paint to make Knives' face, the dry heat of the desert, the dreadful abandon of plant childbirth, the nausea of extreme hunger, the titter of human babies, the sour sweet of fresh strawberries, the click of a trigger. If she'd known how to kill the memories, to get amnesia like Vash had, she wouldn't have done it.

Recollected screams pierced him, blending, swirling, louder, louder. His ears rang and his throat was sore from the screaming until the screaming stopped that the lungs may breathe.

Knives fell back onto the sand, steadied by his folded legs, eyes clamped shut, mouth hanging open, panting for breath, gasping, whimpering. His body hunched over limp. He shuddered with each breath, cold wet with a sweat.

If he'd tasted anything, it would have been a mix of salt and vomit and blood. Twin trails of blood ran from either side of his gaping mouth to drip from his chin, evidence of him having bitten his tongue, but there was no other blood.

Vanessa was walking away, dragging her boots in the sand as if they were leaden. She paused at the cart, digging around in its contents. Moments later, her dragging footsteps neared his body again, and she sat a foot back from where she'd been kneeling, breathing only half as heavy as Knives. Resting her sore back gently upon the backpack, she propped herself up and eased the laser gun's sight to Knives' tensed temple.


	34. 34 Kill

(Greetings all readers! Just wanted to note that I've started a forum for questions/comments/discussion, you can find the link by clicking my NAME up top, to get to my user profile - then click 'forum'.

Also, I want to mention that I've begun to write a new story - a 'prequel' of sorts, focusing on the backstory of my OC. I am wondering if anyone's interested in that, so please let me know! I suppose I'll put it on anyhow, why not.

Thanks again for reading, I really appreciate that people take the time to, and I am flattered that there are people who like my OC's and storyline enough to read this RIDICULOUSLY large amount of material!

Now here's what you came for:)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Knives."

So cold. Cold and still, not a breeze. Just cold. Bones cold, throat cold, nothing to block it out.

His mouth was only slightly open, breathing down to a normal pace. He still couldn't see anything, just darkness and cold, and the memories darting around like gnats in his mind. The shivering had stopped. With hardly a thought to it, his fingertips had fallen into the sand between his knees, and he felt that when he stirred his fingers just a bit the little granules tickled his callused skin. Slowly, his eyes cracked open.

"Knives."

Blue sand. Moonlight cast a slightly blue color onto the sand at his fingers, delicate little rocks, so small. In a flicker, he sent a blade out to slice one into perfect halves. Simple, easy. Clean. This made sense.

"Knives, stop it."

There was a rock about the size of his fist beside his knee. Lifting his left arm out of the sand a few inches, he sent out a blade to slice it. Halves, fourths, eighths, sixteenths.

"Stop!"

Stop! No! STOP! Leave me ALONE! STOP!

Knives cringed, pulling his arms up against his chest. His back hurt, curled over as it was. He could only see his knees, his lap, his arms below him, and the shadow he cast upon this place with the help of the moons above.

A sigh of relief, only slightly released, as if she changed her mind. "Knives."

That was a concerned tone, a tone full of worry and fear and anxiety, but a soft one. A safe one. There was no pain in this voice, this wasn't one of the horrible sounds in his head, this was outside of him. Like the shadow, the sand, there existed something outside of himself.

"Knives, what are you going to do, now?" She sounded as if she knew the answer, and it wasn't what she'd hoped.

He decided that he was going to straighten his back and lift his gaze. Yes, gather his surroundings, now he was fairly sure of where he was.

A laser line, red, moved with him, pointing to just above his line of sight. He followed the line, followed it from the business end of a firearm, followed it to point over his head. No, not over. His eyes followed the line until it made him cross-eyed. It was resting in a dot, he assumed, just above and between his eyes.

Largely without the help of his mind, his body sought to preserve itself. At the same moment that his head ducked away to the right, his core sent a thin, little blade up and into the barrel of the laser gun, swiping forward to cleave the thing apart.

Her body also meant to preserve itself, sending itself back onto her elbows, letting go the grip on the gun as soon as the good eye caught sight of the blade's flicker.

Letting his eyes focus on hers, he noted her expression carefully. She looked afraid, angry. Her face was flushed. Nervously, her eyes flitted away from his at intervals.

"You're…very…angry. Right now. Aren't you. I really ought to kill you," she grumbled, mostly to herself, as she lifted herself back upon the backpack. She studied the sliced gun in the sand between them, then glanced back up to see he was still staring. "Stop judging me," she murmured, looking back and forth between his steely eyes with her only useful one.

Judging? That's hardly the term for what he was doing. What was he doing? How did she look different, was she still Vanessa? Why wasn't she crying?

"Knives, are you in there anymore?" she asked, waving her hand inches from his face. His gaze followed her hands, and then returned to stare at her face. Frustrated, since it'd been hours, she'd sat there, aiming at him, fighting to stay awake as he sat in his stupor, Vanessa reached down to grasp his left wrist with both hands, pressing his palm into the sand. "I should've expected that; an eye for an eye. You really shouldn't have, though. If I hadn't pulled my weapon back for feathers, your face would've ended up a lot worse than mine did when I…Knives?"

He'd smirked, slightly, for a second there. 'You intended to maim or kill me anyhow, it wouldn't have made a difference,' he argued in a thought. 'And what else does a laser to the brain do, but kill?'

They sat there, silent, staring each other down, trying to read each other. Her breath quickened some, his slowed some. It was nearly dawn. She let go a hand from his to reach behind slowly and pull out a canteen.

His eyes must have opened a little at the sight of it, because she stopped lifting it to her own lips and passed it to him. With his free hand, he wrapped his fingers around the metal, over her fingers, and closed his eyes, drinking slowly.

She thought to tug her hand away, but didn't. It was foolish; it left her open to attack.

Knives finished, finally easing the sore of his mouth enough to work his tongue. Letting loose her hand and its contents, he began to stare again. "Is that all…true?" he asked in a hoarse, crackling voice.

Hesitating, she nodded once. "The angel arm don't lie."

"I'm…I'm sorry."

Vanessa grumbled a curse to herself and narrowed her eyes. "Sorry you weren't there to kill them before they could-?"

"Yes," Knives interrupted, knowing what the end of that sentence would be. "And, because…it…those things…you didn't deserve it, no one…I'm just SORRY."

She frowned, blushing suddenly. It seemed he'd seen quite a lot. As she feared, he saw everything.

"It's all so hard to believe, to comprehend, ALL of it, and you…you act as though…I don't know, you don't seem like someone who…You hide it well-"

Letting go his hands, she dropped her hands into her lap to wring.

Continuing to lock his eyes with hers, Knives went on, gathering his thoughts, his reactions into something he could say aloud. "It more or less puts things into perspective…I felt more…important…before…" Clearing his throat, he heard his voice ring out clearer, softer. "I can't believe I…I'm sorry I…I saw you as an object, of sorts, before, and they…" He shuddered at the thought, as a chill ran through his spine, forcing his eyes away. "There are things I would take back if I could. I'm sorry. I like to think I'm not capable of the things they did to you. But…you don't want to talk about this, do you. Let's never speak of this again," he offered, shifting to stand.

She grabbed his wrist again and tugged him back down to his knees. "You just got to know the real me, the parts of the sum, Knives. Don't want to talk about it? Fine. That's easy for you. But don't go thinking I'm anybody different than who you knew before. I was a victim. I survived. This is me."

"So, you're going to kill me now, because you think I'm going to kill the humans?" Knives asked, wishing suddenly to change the subject.

"Did you see why I don't want you to kill them?" she quizzed, eyeing his expression for signs of deceit. Seeing him nod, she continued, "You see how badly I want to kill them, too? How I've ALWAYS wanted to, deep down?"

Frowning, he recalled that as well. "The last human you killed on purpose was a man who was going to kill you. Just before you met my brother."

"And now, every time I want to lash out at them, I feel his thoughts inside my head. Vash is the angel on my shoulder; you used to be the devil on the other."

He recognized the metaphor, he'd read it before. Funny, the devil in Christian mythology was an angel once, who fought for human rights and was punished by fellow angels for the cause. So, really, Vash was the devil and Knives was the angel. But he understood her metaphor anyhow, defining the devil as the one urging violence. From her viewpoint, she was quite accurate. Knives the devil.

"I came to respect my angel's voice. And I thought my devil became…just a man."

"I have no intention of killing them, unless to save your life. But you don't believe me. And, knowing this…knowing all of this…"

"You have another reason to hate them," she finished for him. "That's…I guess that's sweet, Knives. But…Didn't you see, how most of them were nice to me? Most of them didn't hurt me!"

He scoffed, "That's a weak argument. It seemed all the faces in the mobs were angry. They did nothing to stop it."

She sighed quietly, her shoulders drooping some. "If they were educated, it wouldn't have happened," she muttered. "And it won't happen again. Besides, the only person to give me a scar and remain alive today is you."

"I know. And not all of them were punished for their crimes."

"That's life," she interrupted, somber. "Most crimes go unpunished. But things usually come out fair in the end; you can make things fair. And for every ounce of self control you exact, every drop of blood you don't spill, you've become the better for it all."

His face contorted into disgust at what she'd said, and he wrenched his arm away from her easily. Whirling on one knee, he flung blades towards the cart with an unleashed roar. The toma squeaked out the beginning of a scream but their throats were carved away before the sound could be made. Sliced, shining bits of metal and rubber and toma flesh and packed foods floated on the air for a moment before falling into a sickly wet pile upon the sand. Metal pieces clanged against metal, squished against carcass meat. A corner of a water jar peacefully let water spill from its edges onto items below.

Bellowing out a few more low, angry sounds, Knives climbed to his knees and stomped to the newly made rubble, fists at his sides. He rushed at and kicked the pile, sending chunks of things flying off. Blood squashed against his boot and into the air. Sections of windshield crackled when kicked and tinkled down, broken. Metal clanged and rang out like music as it shuffled around. Sending a blow into a twisted shard of a door, the bit retaliated by flinging back into his shin before flying off into the dark. Knives roared again, voice cracking for a moment, hobbled and fell, then climbed back to his feet and unsteadily resumed thrashing about with the other foot. His arms came up to shield him from some things that broke upward when he attacked them, from the thick, cooling fluids the toma'd drenched everything in. For good measure, he sent his blades into the mess a few more times, letting some fling themselves high into the air above his head before slashing back down upon the bits and the sands. Taking a shard deep in the forearm, he pulled it back out and threw it far away, and crumpled down, onto his back, panting.


	35. 35 Depression

That was…incredibly sloppy. How unlike him, to stand so dangerously close to things, to allow himself to be hurt by what he cut. Throbbing pain in his feet and shin and arm made him tense on the sand, throbbing with his heartbeat and his breath and it sort of made his head quiet.

Tilting his head back into the ground, he glimpsed her, unmoved, still sitting against her backpack. Her legs were folded up to her knees, arms hidden against her chest, chin resting against a knee. She didn't look surprised.

As if waiting to see if he was truly through, minutes passed in the still, still night, until she slowly unfolded herself, shuffled around for something, and began to approach him, to see to his wounds. It was something she'd always done, something she did without thinking. She was a medic first, and a thinking being second. Her own hands seemed to be working against her better judgment when she reached out to examine him.

"Don't touch me," he growled as he lay.

"You're bleeding."

"Let me bleed."

She sighed, as if he was a child, as though he was just being a grouchy child.

"Let me bleed."

"Why?"

Scoffing, he nuzzled his cheek into the coarse sand. Figuring out how to say what was on his mind…he was usually so good at it. But flashes of thoughts didn't seem quite right; he was shoving them away. He was in denial, he realized, analyzing himself. Escapism. Denial. Self-mutilation. Self-hate.

Surely not. He never hated himself.

Never before.

He didn't want to talk; he wanted to act, wanted to hurt. What good was anything? Slaughtering any of those humans wouldn't solve the problem. Hunting down the few still alive, who'd harmed her, that wouldn't satiate the burning inside. Most of those who'd touched her, maimed her, dominated her – he stopped listing, as he felt he may heave – most of them, almost all of them were long dead. Knives wanted a resolution, an end to this never-ending life of suffering. Her never-ending life of pain.

Kill her.

"What were you thinking?" she was asking, leaning over the wreckage he'd just made.

O

O

"We needed those toma. The water, the food, the cart. Where are we going to get a new cart?" She said these things with only a fraction of the concern one would expect. Saying anything at all, anything to start conversation, to bring him back into the present and take some sort of step forward, any step forward…

Vanessa was toeing the pile, pulling out a few small items that were undamaged, that hadn't gotten blood or water or debris inside. At least she had her med-kit in her own bag; at least it was intact. Some water and food; only one blanket, but that wasn't vital to survive the remainder of the trip to Glaston. Glancing back at Knives, she eyed the damage. His boots were scratched; he'd probably cut up his feet some, but not seriously; there wasn't much blood. The shin wound was bad, but it'd stopped gushing blood. No arteries were severed there, or in his arm. Blood leaked out lazily from him, and he had cut up his clothing some, little scratches to the skin; he could make it to Glaston. If he could walk at all.

O

O

Knives lazily eyed the medical supplies she'd left by him. He knew how to clean and bind his own wounds.

Let the garden die. Let the humans die.

Find the settlement Simon described and kill them all. Soak the planet with their blood.

And let the plant angels die? Would they let him go? Was there anything they could do about it anyhow? Maybe the angels would be fine without him. Let them take care of themselves. Let him use up the remains of his energy, let him blacken his hair completely, let him wither and die, finally. Let her die. Help her die.

Callisto? If the girl couldn't take care of herself, let her die as well.

O

O

If it weren't for all the bits of glass and sand and torn up cart in the meat, some of these toma chunks would have been salvageable as food, Vanessa thought, recalling the odd taste of roast toma she'd had only a few times before. Such creatures were so valuable as transportation, it was foolish to purposely kill or injure them. She imagined it must be difficult to catch more in the wild, but they'd have to do it. Or she'd have to do it. Her ears told her Knives was still lying there behind her, breathing rhythmically, angrily.

It was too hazy to try to predict what the outcome of this would be. Would he lose his calm again, lash out at her or the residents of Gunsmoke? Could he come to process what he'd seen in her? When she'd read Vash's and Knives' memories before, it wasn't very jarring, really. Maybe Knives didn't take to it well; maybe this was so intense for him because he'd read all 3 sets of memories in her mind. That could be quite a burden, to take at once, she assumed. After he came out of this, after he let his wounds be bandaged, after he settled on how he would take the 'news' – what then? Could she ever trust him not to go psycho on the residents? He could know anything she knew – where the settlement was, for instance – and with her knowledge and his ability to kill, everyone on Gunsmoke could be dead in a week.

Wiping her hands upon torn cloth remnants, Vanessa was reminded of the hair-darkening effect – that Knives had begun to show, as did she. She was confident that she could keep her arm more controlled than he, not snuff out as quickly. But he fought with blades, she with whips. Could the whips protect her from the blades? One little, quick cut to the throat, the head, and she'd be gone. How could she kill him?

Should she incapacitate him? Drug him, bind him? Cripple him? Could she bear to do such a thing to an immortal creature?

Perhaps he could be trusted, to walk alongside her, if she were to keep him by her side indefinitely, to watch him, to stand guard. There was a chance he'd changed enough over this century, that he could handle what he'd learned and would not be a threat to everyone. Heck, maybe they'd even come to enjoy each other's company again. Of course, knowing all of it, of who'd done what to her, he'd probably never 'like' her, 'want' her in the ways he had before – if Vash knew all of that, really, all of it, he probably wouldn't have either. She'd spent the past hundred years without affection, though, until Knives just weeks ago. She could live like that again. Somehow, she could once more live as the joyless, celibate soldier.

If only the humans HAD all left on those ships. Then she and Knives would've been pretty much alone on Gunsmoke, and Knives' 'demons' could've slept forever.

And things had been going so well.

Too bad. It was all…too bad.


	36. 36 Alone

He'd calculated, long ago, that there was insufficient power to terraform this planet. There were still a few buried wrecks capable of flight. The sensor in his chest pocket could show him the way, as well as the location of the settlement, though Vanessa's memories had shown him that as well. If he fixed himself up, he could make it back to the gardens, slaughter them all, except Callisto, he supposed, then on to the settlement to wipe out the remainder of the humans. Hop in a functioning shuttle, attempt to make it to Earth, to kill at least some of them? There were a lot of unknowns in that equation.

Really, how could anyone stoop to such lows? Sure, he'd killed many, and hired many to kill many. But that was all in the past. And to have used rape as a weapon? He would've never done such a thing. Given the chance to take Vanessa by force, he didn't.

He'd really wanted to, too.

Feathers, wings, fluttering, someone woke him. He didn't know he'd been asleep until he woke, and found that the second sun had already begun to rise. A buzzard creature was feasting on toma bits nearby.

Sitting up slowly, Knives winced at his injuries. His clothes were stuck into his wounds in several places.

She was laying on a blanket, curled up, resting her head on her backpack. Her chin was tucked against her chest, hands resting gently beside her face. Only feet away, she was asleep.

Knives frowned, remembering. He absentmindedly flexed his left hand as he turned to face her.

Kill her.

I should kill her.

I should put her out of her misery.

But he hesitated, knowing how he'd regret this.

He regretted…so many things.

Shuffling on his knees, closer, he reflected upon how a quick slice to the brain would kill her. It would not be a fitting death for her, but at least she would be at peace.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, hoping she'd hear him in whatever dream she was dreaming. "I wish I could've helped you, then. Protected you. But I suppose I only hurt you," he continued, whispering as quietly as he could, down into her pointed ear. "If those humans hadn't interrupted us, I would've-" He recalled that time weeks ago, when he was so very close to having sex with her, but was blown off and away by the explosion. His back had already begun to scar from it. The nausea returned. "I'm sorry I took advantage of you. Goodbye," he added, in parting, as he resolved to loose his blades upon her skull.

O

O

"You weren't taking advantage of me; it was my idea!" she announced, rising from the blanket. Apparently, she hadn't been asleep after all. "Remember seeing the therapy I went through, on Earth? I'm pretty sure I could have a normal, 'healthy' sexual relationship…not that that's ever going to happen again. Do me a favor and try to HIDE your disgust," she added sarcastically, lifting one eyebrow at him. "Poor you, you almost copulated with damaged goods."

Lowering and relaxing his arm, Knives sat and his mind went blank for a moment. He was actually going to kill her? Why?

"We're not going to have a fun time getting to Glaston if we wait any longer. Don't want to travel in the heat without water for very long," she instructed, rolling her blanket up into the backpack. "So, if you're not going to do something about your wounds, if you're not ready to TALK to me yet, we'd best go."

He wouldn't stop staring at her. Again. But this time, his expression was odd – his brows were knitted in a sort of confusion or frustration, his mouth hanging open limp. His nostrils were flared a little. His face was very pale, his eyes very wide and sad.

"Knives," she began, carefully, crouching before him, "We're even. And I'm fine. I'm over it. I FORGAVE them."

Feeling his need to destroy more or less melt away, Knives wondered if he could accept that. If humans could be forgiven. "They don't deserve your forgiveness."

"If they became good people afterwards, really felt guilt, then they DO deserve forgiveness. If not, they're rotting in Hell right now. Either way, I feel much better. And to be honest, you've given me moments that…they're basically the only moments I've had, ever, that were perfectly happy – the guilt and sadness and all of it, it just melted away. Thank you for that. Anyhow, stop apologizing. Let's try not to hurt each other anymore, ok? I don't want to fight you. Let's…NOT kill each other. Ok?"

With some measure of reluctance, Knives rose. He brushed sand from his rear and his back. Clutching his throbbing arm to his chest, he was sore, and he couldn't reach to rub away all of it, all over his back, stuck to his clothes with sweat.

Vanessa reached over to shake it from the back of his head, off of his shoulders, his back. She went to finish up, to wipe the sand from the cheek he'd slept on, but drew back. "Sorry," she mumbled, remembering that upon her offer to bandage him, he'd rather bleed. He didn't want her to touch him…Maybe, never again.

He wiped away the sand himself, frowning at her. Turning, he went to the medical supplies and pulled out cotton gauze and tape. Slowly, he pulled away the cloth from his shin, his forearm, out of the soft, wet scabbing. Eyes narrowed, watering, he ignored the need to disinfect, not yet, and applied bandaging to himself. It smarted to stand. But stand he did, and he shuffled toward her, alongside her as they began their trek to the complex.

Glancing over, he noticed her eyes downcast, somber. Wishing her to smile, he reached up with his uninjured arm and mussed the back of her hair, playfully, like he did to the cats.

She gazed up, bewildered.

He stopped and gave her a lingering hug. Finally she was smiling, and he resumed his place alongside her, to walk the sands.

"Things will be alright," he reflected, casting his crystal blue eyes upon the horizon before them.

She sighed slightly, relieved that he was speaking, as well as to react to his optimism. "It's like a vacation. From farming and stuff." Vanessa stretched out her arm and passed her hand across the distance. "Just you and me…and the plants…and the open road."

He chuckled. "They'd better take care of the cats," he muttered.

"We can check on things…whenever…"

"Mm Hmm."

"Knives?"

"Hmm?"

"Will you be killing anyone?" she asked, sweetly, tucking her hands behind the straps of her backpack.

He thought. "I'm not thinking about it, right now."

She laughed aloud.

"I don't want to." Knives added, clearing his throat.

"Clean slate?"

"Clean slate." He smiled, mussing her hair again.

"Stop it," she snapped, waving his hands away. But she was grinning.

"Today," he told her, running his hand across a scarred cheek that suddenly could be described as beautiful, "will be a very good day."

She smirked, closing her eyes at his touch, feeling the warmth of the suns fill her through and through.

Yes. It will be.


	37. 37 Dust

Cloaks whipping about from force of wind, two figures sat huddled close together in the late-day suns. Their packs settled into the sand behind them, canteens clinking together lazily.

A blur could be seen in the distance, slowly approaching as the sunlight dimmed. Through the dull roar of wind, she could hear the huffing breath of toma, the crunch of sand beneath rubber wheels. Vanessa ran her gloved hand across Knives' back supportively. Her chest was tight with dread.

The cart neared, to such a distance that she assumed he, too, could hear its presence. It slowed, it turned, it stopped just a few feet before them, and its driver stepped down. The two cloaked figures stood and approached.

"Good afternoon, Simon," Vanessa greeted somberly, trying to bow to him the same as he did to her, reminded of the habits of some back on Earth. "What news do you bring today?"

He removed his cap and clutched it to his chest. His face down, he was shaking slightly. Pulling a few folded pages from his pouch, he held them out to her meekly. As he watched her hands work to unfurl the complexly folded notes, his own hands went to fidget behind his back. "Nobody's read it yet. Not a soul, I swear." He sounded very afraid.

Pulling the pages tight and flat up into her hood, the wind whipping the edges, she skimmed the notes, heart skipping beats. She pushed the pages in Knives' direction, letting him snatch them away eagerly, and ran to the cart, leaping into the back of it.

He read over the first few lines several times, his mind resistant to absorb it. The cancer had spread; that was why she'd been sick. The people had given her things to numb the pain, but she'd weakened and had spent the past two months laying in wait, to die. Callisto bid her farewell in this letter.

Simon dropped into the sand before him, wrapping his arms around his knees. "I swore not to say anything," he murmured miserably. "I didn't know what to do; I thought you'd want to lay her to rest yourselves…"

Vanessa was crouched and still in the cart bed.

A waft of slight decay met his nose.

"Well?" Knives called out impatiently.

"It's her," Vanessa confirmed grimly, head popping up, tugging the edge of her hood away so that he could see her face. "There are obvious tumors, they look to be into the lungs and heart. She died not two days ago."

Simon nodded, a tear rolling down his cheek. He swiveled to face her. "I'm so sorry."

"She said she had the flu," Vanessa muttered to herself, climbing slowly down from the cart. "She wouldn't let me…If I'd known-"

"No," Knives interrupted sharply, hand covering his face. "She didn't want a cure. She didn't want our help," he corrected, referring to the letter.

Vanessa thought she heard his voice crack, but the howling wind filled her ears and marred her piqued hearing. She went to his side and cautiously lifted her hands to his hood. "Knives, I'm sorry."

Simon flinched. He'd met Knives over ten years ago, and would always be afraid of his ominous presence. For the duration of Callisto's illness, he'd dreaded seeing Knives receive the bad news, dreaded the possibility of facing the man's rage.

"Take her back, bury her in the garden," Knives demanded, turning his back on the human.

Vanessa drew her arms back into her cloak and waited for Simon to stand. "Thank you, Simon. Have a safe journey; see you here next month." Finally, turning, she followed Knives over a sand dune and listened to the rustle of the cart as it pulled back from whence it came.

"She belongs in the garden. With the humans," Knives was saying to her, voice raised to hear over the winds. He handed her the pages, turned over.

There was more written on the back of the last page, that she hadn't noticed. She shuffled ahead quickly, straining to read this last bit.

"'I get to live like a human and die like a human,'" he quoted. "'I am really happy.'"

Sniffling, she looked up into his hood, to see his eyes brimming with tears. But he was smiling, softly. What Callisto was saying – she knew he didn't agree and he couldn't relate, but she'd made this choice for herself. He understood.

They trudged off into the night towards the nearest plant complex, as always, to retire to rooms they'd slept in many trips before, to eat preserves and foodstuffs Simon had brought them many times before, to grieve for the fallen plant, and to find solace in each other arms again.

As everyone came to know and respect, the angels saved the humans.

The shack that had been the walking angels' home was painstakingly repaired, finally, from the explosions of the scouts. It became something of a shrine, housing a library of hundreds of handwritten texts in soft-bound notebooks, chronicling the building of it and the needs and lives of cats, insects, plants, and toma. Pages had been torn out, and based on context these seemed to have been pages about the plant angels themselves, justifiably removed, lest any of the current human inhabitants become stained with the sin of knowing such things.

The only entryway to the garden had been through the shrine, but the residents were quick to build several other entrances to use, some closer to the housing they'd built outside it. Some of the residents spent the day gardening, and the rest built – they built houses, sheds, barns, extensions onto the garden, and repaired existing structures. Carefully, gradually, the garden doubled, tripled. Whether fresh or preserved, there was always a great surplus of food to be sent to the distant settlement. The giant carts left filled with foodstuffs and returned populated with slaves. Seedlings and cats were sent off to the settlement on occasion, and rumor had it that a few successful gardens were growing there.

In this mutual exchange, two distant and separate – albeit symbiotic – populations of humans arose. Settlement folk sometimes dared to journey for a tour of the garden, but often were too superstitious to enter the place. In the garden, slaves became free, and over time came to view their angels as more benevolent than frightening. Children were told stories of the angel He and angel She whom the prophet Simon communicated with. They were told to be good, because He and She might be watching.

Taking the form of a human woman, She allowed herself to become a slave to see how humans lived, and saw the plight of mankind's slaves. The angel He grew the garden from His blood and tears, and the animals and bugs within were brought to life from feathers.

He and She were angels who loved humans enough to reward them with this gift, although mankind deserved none until the afterlife. They were beautiful and tall and thin and light and blonde and Their eyes were like water. This they simply knew, though they would never see for themselves; not in life.

THE END

Please watch for my next story, a 'prequel' of sorts, to be titled

UGLY PLANT IN A BIG WORLD

Though I must warn you, it will be almost entirely an original story. Not the usual Trigun fanfare, but it should be interesting to anyone who enjoyed these stories.

THANKS FOR READING!


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